Poor countries demand action at UN climate talks

“These commitments show precisely the leadership and goodwill we need,” said Andrew Steer, president of the Washington, D.C-think tank World Resources Institute. “Developing countries clearly need more support to shift to a low-carbon economy and cope with the mounting impacts of climate change. These commitments should inspire other donor countries to pledge more funds.”

With less than two days left to reach an agreement, activists said it was time for Qatar and other Arab countries to do their part to push for a deal. This is the first time that the talks have been held in the Middle East and Qatar is under pressure to show that the controversial decision to allow an OPEC member to host the conference was not a mistake.

Two activists who briefly held up a banner “Qatar why host, not lead” were briefly detained, according to the UK Climate Youth Coalition, which posted a video of the incident on its website.

“Despite expectations from the new civil society movement around climate change in the region, Arab political leadership has so far failed to materialize,” said Wael Hmaidan, director of Climate Action Network-International.

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