Carbon emissions in Kenya. (Photo Courtesy Business Daily)

African countries are digging in with fresh demands to rich nations ahead of UN's climate change talks, opening a new battlefront in the search for a global accord that has eluded the world over the last 10 years.

Leaders meeting in Nairobi have warned that a deal would only be possible if industrialised countries committed themselves to finance the war on global warming in the continent.

While this demand has been on the cards since June, the parliamentarians raised the stakes yesterday when they resolved to speak in one voice, arguing that the developed world emits most of the greenhouse gases.

The leaders, meeting under the aegis of Pan African Parliamentary Conference on Climate change (PANPCC), also want the developed nations to agree to ambitious mid-term greenhouse gas reduction targets.

While the finer details of Africa's fresh demands will be known by Friday after the conclusion of the four - day meeting, sources said Ethiopia which has been chosen to present the continent's position at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December has been detailed to insist on a compensation deal as a precondition for negotiations.

The MPs have been pushing for a united front to counter the strong tide of opposition from the West against their long search for an equitable, just and fair post-Kyoto deal which should come into force in two years.

The Nairobi meeting under the theme "One Africa, one voice, one position," is a precursor to the UN global climate change conference which starts on December 7.

"You are all aware of the lobbying taking place worldwide ahead of the December summit, the scene for negotiations that will culminate in a new global climate deal to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012," President Kibaki said on Tuesday when he opened the meeting.

World leaders crafted the Kyoto protocol to provide a framework on how the developed world should compensate Africa and other developing nations against the effects of climate change that mainly result from increased industrial activities.

But industrialised countries such as US refused to sign the deal, saying it would jeopardise their development agenda.

"Leadership at the highest level is needed to protect the planet, save lives and build a more sustainable global economy for all. In Copenhagen this December, the world must sign a deal," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement

In Yaoundé, where the idea of PANPCC was first broached three months ago, African leaders resolved to speak in one voice and join hands with other developing nations in demanding an annual compensation of $200 billion from rich nations to fund mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

"The money for financing climate change should be new and additional (to development aid) and should be provided in the form of grants and other innovative financial mechanisms and instruments," reads the declaration by the African parliamentarians, who want the cash committed before the Copenhagen talks.

African leaders believe clinching the compensation deal before hand will prevent a repeat of the Kyoto protocol case that saw some rich nations back out of the deal long after developing nations had appended their signatures.

"In unmitigated climate change, Africa faces an apocalypse comparable only to the world wars - meaning Africa's future depends on a just, fair and equitable deal struck at the Copenhagen," said Mr Cyprian Awudu, the PANPCC chairman and a Cameroonian MP.

Other than bargaining for compensation for Africa, Mr Awudu said the continent's leaders have a role to draft rules that will entrench the Copenhagen deal in the national constitutions.

The MPs would also ensure that adequate financing is secured in national budgets for use in funding adaptation and mitigation of climate change programmes, he added.

The MPs are expected to push for tax regimes that promote the importation and use of clean technologies while prohibiting the use of those that degrade the environment.

"The continent is ill-prepared for the impacts of climate change and as a result of poverty and inadequate policies and legal frameworks; we have continued to exert pressure on resources that could have cushioned us from these effects," President Kibaki said.

Experts warn that climate change will increase vulnerability of already stressed agro-based economies on the continent that has already experienced the impacts of climate change through floods, frequent drought, increased human and livestock diseases, food and water insecurity, and dust and sand storms.

It is estimated that industrial development and carbon emissions are related to an extent that the developing countries with 80 per cent of world's population only account for 20 per cent of the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet, the effects of global warming are most severe in the developing countries due to limited capacities to deal with the resulting situation.

"Countries in the sub-Saharan Africa are disproportionately affected by climate change such that they need scaled up financial and technological support to help their vulnerable people to adapt to the climate change while also meeting urgent energy needs," Ms Marianne Fay, the World Bank chief economist said at the release of this year's world development report.