//this looks like the formation of a model - certain countries that support low lying islands will certainly draw the benefits from those countries vs those who did not help. Would it be possible for industrialized countries to 'adopt' others in need?
Doha: climate change talks end with compensation deal for poor nations that could cost billions
Britain faces paying billions of pounds in compensation to less developed countries as part of a new international deal on climate change.
By Louise Gray, Doha and Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
8:00PM GMT 08 Dec 2012
The agreement, which was thrashed out in an extra day of talks at the United National climate change summit in Qatar, will mean rich nations having to compensate poorer ones for losses they suffer due to global warming.
Angry exchanges between delegations over the measure brought threats of walkouts and even tears from small island states, which pushed to have the new mechanism introduced despite fierce opposition from the United States.
Although it is not due to come into force for at least a year, the agreement could cost wealthy nations such as the UK billions of pounds.
It comes as economists warned that commitments to cut carbon emissions – agreed earlier in the talks as part of negotiations carried out by the European Union as a whole – could cost the British economy around £23 billion by 2020.
Other major economies such as the USA, China and Japan refused to sign up to similar commitments, leaving businesses in the UK and other European countries at a competitive disadvantage.
The UK has also pledged to provide £2.9 billion in aid to developing countries to help them adopt green technology and cope with the consequences of climate change.
The new agreement on compensation is likely to be paid on top of that to help "vulnerable" countries pay for "loss and damage" caused by sea level rise, extreme weather and other impacts driven by global warming.
A coalition of 43 small islands and low lying coastal countries, including the Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Cuba, Bahamas and Fiji, pushed for the measure, stating they faced an onslaught of drought, floods and famines, and so needed help to cope with the harm.
They argued that under the principle where the polluter is made to pay for harm to the environment, richer developed nations – which are responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions – should provide financial and technological help to those countries most at risk.
They said the fund could act as a kind of insurance system to help small islands that are likely to suffer most from climate change.
Ed Davey, the climate change and energy secretary, who is leading the UK delegation, said the UK had backed putting a reference to loss and damage into the agreement and was in favour of stronger targets on climate change.
There were cheers around the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha yesterday when the final text of the agreement setting out the plan to introduce the compensation measures was passed despite objections from Russia and the USA.
Ed Davey, the climate change secretary, said poor countries were already dealing with rising sea levels and the seepage of salt into water supplies - and rich countries like the UK had a duty to help by developing a loss and damage mechanism.
"I do think we have a duty to help people who are losing their countries below the waves," he said.
Mr Davey said recent floods in Britain showed how important it was to deal with floods.
"The UK is already spending hundreds of millions on flood defences as we see more flooding – which many scientists say is attributable to climate change. There are poor countries that also need support in that.
"We will look at that issue and consider it with others. There is an important debate to be had and the text that has been put forward – whilst not absolutely specific – ensures we look at this seriously in the international community."
The exact details of the loss and damage scheme, including how much developed countries will have to pay, are expected to be worked out at future meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, next year or in 2014.
Malia Talakai, the deputy lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, said: "Both the fund and insurance premiums would be supported by contributions from industrialised countries based on their responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and ability to pay for its consequences.
"At the present time, developing countries are left to cover the costs of loss and damage from climate impacts that are not of their making."
Kieren Keke, Nauru Foreign Minister, who led the Alliance of Small Island States, said his people's lives are in danger.
In a moving speech which he was cheered by many at the meeting, he said ambitions on cutting carbon and providing finance to vulnerable countries remained too low.
"Those who are indifferent need to open their eyes. Those who are obstructive and self-serving need to realise we are not talking about how comfortably your people live but whether our people live."
Earlier the UK was among 38 industrialised countries to sign up to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the only binding pact on cutting green house gas emissions. The deal extends the life of the commitment past 2012, when it was due to end, until 2020.
However major polluters including China, USA, Canada, Russia and Japan did not sign up to the pact.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which was agreed in 1997 and came into force in 2005, the UK was committed to reduce its emissions by around 34 per cent as part of the 20 per cent reduction target agreed by negotiators for the whole of the European Union.
The extended commitment contains a clause that could lead to the EU commitment expanding, to result in a 30 per cent reduction target, something that British officials say could increase the UK's own liability to a 42 per cent reduction.
Economists estimate this could cost the UK economy around £23 billion by 2020.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is likely to face heavy criticism from his backbenches if Britain is left facing expensive carbon cutting targets that are not being matched by industrial competitors.
More than 100 Conservative MPs – including several within the Cabinet – are said to be climate change sceptics.
Clacton MP Douglas Carswell, one of the leading Conservative climate-change sceptics, said: "Britain should have absolutely no part in this. The whole science of climate change is highly questionable. By pursuing new emissions targets we are only accelerating a process of deindustrialisation in Europe, which is transporting manufacturing jobs to other countries.
"The United States was right to oppose this. We would be doing the same if we had democratically accountable people negotiating on our behalf. But we have European Union officials negotiating on our behalf who are immune to the ballot box."
After 12 days of deadlocked talks, delegates finally agreed on a framework that will help to form the basis of a new binding deal on climate change to be negotiated in 2015 in time to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2020.
Environmental groups, however, have expressed frustration at the protracted process and lack of progress that has been made in successive climate change talks, which are now in their 18th year.
One of the main aims throughout has been limiting global temperature rises, which have been attributed to growing levels of greenhouse gases - primarily carbon dioxide - in the atmosphere. A key objective has been to limit global average temperature rises to a maximum of 2C.
There are more than 17,000 delegates attending the talks in the desert in Doha. It is estimated that the talks themselves have had a carbon footprint of more than 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – equivalent to cutting down 64 hectares of rainforest.
The Swarovski chandeliers in the main meeting hall and a skyline of sky scrapers, with delegates ferried around in limousines, have made a surreal setting for the talks. Qatar, one of the world's richest nations, but with plentiful supplies of cheap energy from its oil, has the largest carbon footprint per person in the world.
There was disappointment that the hosts had failed to build any momentum for cutting emissions in the Middle East.
Negotiations ran through Friday night and into yesterday, with one delegate from the Philippines bursting into tears at one point.
The tense talks finally ended without any firm commitments on reducing carbon emissions nor on climate change aid, another key topic under discussion at the summit.
Richard Gledhill a climate change adviser with Price Waterhouse Cooper business consultants, said however that the agreement to address the loss and damage suffered by developing nations marked a significant victory for the countries which are most at risk of the impacts of global warming.
He said: "With concern growing that the two degree target could soon be out of reach, this issue can only grow in importance.
"The issue of loss and damage is closely tied in with the issue of legal liability. Some lawyers expect climate change to unleash a flood of liability claims."
Nick Mabey, the director of sustainable development campaign group E3G, said negotiations have been badly managed in Doha.
But with a global deal again on the table, the world is finally moving on after the failure of governments to reach a binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in 2009, he said.
"We have cleared up the legacy of Copenhagen now we can focus on a comprehensive agreement in 2015 that decides whether we will face a 2C or a 5C rise in temperature in future."
Additional reporting: Rob Watts
