The chief of the Opec oil cartel said that oil-producing countries should be compensated for lost revenues if UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month reach a deal that cuts the use of oil.

In an interview with The Times, Abdullah Salem al-Badri, of Libya, who is due to speak in Copenhagen, said that richer oil-consuming countries such as Britain and the US should acknowledge that historically they have created most carbon dioxide emissions and should not be allowed to block poorer countries from raising living standards for their own people.

“We are not emitting. Historically, it is the developed countries. The responsibility is on their shoulders,” he said. “If we want to keep temperatures from rising by more than two degrees [centigrade] we need a comprehensive and sophisticated approach.”

Developed countries should provide financial assistance to poorer oilproducing countries, he said, adding that such a pledge was part of the original Kyoto Protocol and that any attempt to drop it could be fatal for the Copenhagen summit. But he insisted that Opec wanted to reach a deal at Copenhagen, calling it a “noble goal”.

He said that carbon capture and storage technology was essential to cutting emissions while meeting global energy demand, which he said would remain reliant on fossil fuels for decades.

Speaking in Opec’s headquarters in Vienna, Mr al-Badri, 69, also accused City speculators of causing the recent surge in oil prices by holding 130 million barrels in tankers at sea, waiting for prices to rise. Mr al-Badri claimed that tougher regulation was needed in the London and New York financial markets and rejected claims that Opec had driven up prices by cutting production last year by 4.2 million barrels a day.

Crude prices recently rose to almost $80 a barrel, their highest since October lat year, and the average price of petrol in the UK has risen by 26 per cent this year. It is expected to be 110p a litre by the end of the year.

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