Islands that are most vulnerable to rising oceans are seeking an insurance program to protect against damage related to climate change, adding to pressure on industrial nations to increase aid committed to fight global warming to more than $100 billion a year.

The islands are proposing a “loss and damage” mechanism that would insure and compensate countries that suffer from extreme weather, erosion and drought. The request is raising tension levels among more than 190 industrial and developing nations at United Nations climate talks in Doha this week.

“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.”

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