Brussels is lobbying for an international tax on aeroplane fuel as governments look to levies on polluting industries to finance climate action.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate commissioner, has said that China, Zambia, Brazil and the Gulf nations are among those that have expressed interest in such a tax in talks leading up to the UN’s COP28 climate summit starting in Dubai on Thursday. Unlike other fuels, kerosene is exempt from tax throughout the world.

The levy would be a way to generate “a substantial amount of money” with a “relatively small sum” charged per flight, Hoekstra said in an interview with a group of journalists in Brussels. It also had “an element of fairness to it because it is typically those from Europe and North America and other more affluent countries that fly more”.

Earlier this year, France and other countries pushed for the introduction of a shipping levy to help fund a response to climate change.

Hoekstra said his plan at COP28 was “to not only test the waters but to talk about the why, the what and the how” of an aviation levy.

“We tax everything alive, what we eat, when we work, and then at the last time when we die but not aviation, and that is off.”

Hoekstra, who was named as the EU’s climate chief in October and will represent the bloc at COP28, has conducted more than 60 calls and meetings with climate ministers and diplomats since his appointment, according to a document seen by the Financial Times.

Paying for the worst effects of climate change is expected to be a key issue at the summit, as developing nations increasingly call for funding as temperatures and sea levels rise.

A fund for loss and damage related to global warming is set to be established at COP28 but has been one of the most contentious discussions in the lead-up to the summit. Three people involved in the talks said that they expected the fund to be launched on the first day of COP in the hope that leaders would pledge money for it in their opening speeches.

The EU has expressed willingness to make a “substantial” contribution to the fund in the context of “an ambitious outcome” at COP28.

Beyond that fund, estimates for how much money is required to counteract the worst effects of climate change vary but amount to trillions of dollars annually. The International Energy Agency has said that $4.5tn will be needed each year for clean energy alone by the early 2030s, up from $1.8tn currently.

The EU agreed last month to include a “polluter pays” principle as part of its negotiating position at COP28, in order to make fossil fuel producers pay for climate damage and the transition to renewable energy in the developing world.

Eamon Ryan, the Irish climate minister who has pushed the principle, has also backed the aviation tax and told the FT that a “mosaic” of financing solutions would be needed to deal with climate change.

“We need financing for loss and damage, we need financing for adaptation . . . we need financing for mitigation,” he said.

Ryan, who is the IEA’s co-chair for 2024, said a broad range of financing options should be considered at COP28, from a tax on the profits of fossil fuels to a levy on shipping and aviation. He also suggested a hybrid model, using private investments from the fossil fuel sector alongside public cash that reduces the risk of investing in emerging and developing countries.

He called for the final agreement at COP28 to include a pledge to examine different sources of finance.

“It’s not that we have to sign on the bottom line the exact terms, but the broad principle of all of that needs to be done, the scale of financing, that is one of the most important discussions we have to have in Dubai,” he said.