DOHA, Qatar Islands most vulnerable to rising sea levels are pushing for a climate-damage insurance program, adding to pressure on industrial nations to boost aid committed to fight global warming past $100 billion a year. <\/p>\n
The islands propose a \"loss and damage\" mechanism that would insure and compensate countries that suffer from extreme weather, erosion and drought. The request adds to tensions between more than 190 industrial and developing nations at the United Nations climate talks in Doha this week. <\/p>\n
\"All we are asking is that they help us with these issues that aren't our doing,\" Malia Talakai of Nauru, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, or AOSIS, a bloc of 43 island nations, said in an interview in Doha. \"We are trying to say that if you pollute you must help us.\" <\/p>\n
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joins the meeting Tuesday with six national leaders including Gabon's President Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The conference is aiming to streamline its negotiation process this year, paving the way for adopting a treaty limiting fossil-fuel emissions by 2015 that would come into force in 2020. <\/p>\n
Industrial nations three years ago pledged to boost aid to $100 billion a year by 2020. Those funds would cover projects including renewable energy and sea walls that would help countries adapt to and fight climate change. <\/p>\n
The United States, the European Union and other developed countries are wary of the proposal because it may have the potential to create open-ended financial and legal liabilities, said Saleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi scientist based in London at the International Institute for Environment and Development. <\/p>\n
\"Developed countries hear that phrase, 'loss and damage,' and they think of an international fund for compensation and liability taboo subjects for them,\" Huq said in an interview in Doha. \"There's strong pushback. The U.S. has said there is no way they are going to do it.\" <\/p>\n
State Department envoy Todd Stern dodged a question Monday on the matter after arriving in Doha, saying there are \"some issues that are of concern there, but I don't want to weigh into that without being certain.\" <\/p>\n
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the 27-member bloc has been supportive of the concept, though has some reservations on how to proceed. <\/p>\n
\"We think that it's not really mature enough yet to say this is exactly how we do it,\" Hedegaard said in an interview in Doha. \"We need some more work on that, but we have signaled very clearly to them that we are open to find a solution on loss and damage.\" <\/p>\n
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