The Philippines urged UN climate negotiators in Doha yesterday to learn from the deadly typhoon that struck the archipelago this week and wake up to the realities of global warming.

“I appeal to the whole world, I appeal to leaders from all over the world, to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face,” Filipino climate negotiator Naderev Sano told the yearly gathering of nearly 200 countries.

“An important backdrop for my delegation is the profound impacts of climate change that we are already confronting. As we sit here, every single hour, even as we vacillate and procrastinate here, the death toll is rising.”

Officials say a quarter of a million people were made homeless and 477 confirmed dead after the Philippines’ worst typhoon this year.

Negotiators entered the penultimate day of talks in the Qatari capital yesterday deeply divided on the issue of near-term finance for poor nations’ global warming mitigation.

The issue is key to the adoption of a package of plans by today for limiting climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions, as scientists warn that the world is headed for calamitous warming levels accompanied by more extreme weather events.

Developing countries say they need at least another $60 billion (€46 billion) between now and 2015 to deal with the fallout from climate change. The US and EU, as a bloc, have refused to put concrete figures on the table in Doha for new 2013-2020 climate funding. (AFP)