In their addresses on Tuesday at the COP27 climate meeting in Egypt, leaders from developing nations accused affluent nations and oil firms of causing global warming and demanded compensation for the harm done to their economies.

While developing African countries appealed for more international funding, some island nations already being battered by sea level rise and more intense ocean storms urged oil companies to share in their enormous recent profits.

Gastone Browne, the prime minister of Antigua, said the following while speaking at a conference on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States:  “The oil and gas industry continues to earn almost 3 billion United States dollars daily in profits.”

“It is about time that these companies are made to pay a global carbon tax on their profits as a source of funding for loss and damage. While they are profiting, the planet is burning.”

Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, addressed the conference and said that developing countries in Africa required more support for climate change adaptation since requests for an immediate transition away from fossil fuels could harm their economies.

“Let’s be clear, we are in favour of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But we Africans cannot accept that our vital interests be ignored,” he said.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president of Sri Lanka, also gave a speech in which he claimed that while Western governments were fast to devote billions of dollars to the conflict in Ukraine, they were hesitant to spend on climate change.

“Double standards are unacceptable. It is no secret that climate financing has missed the target… As many developed nations deem it fit to wait on their climate financing contributions, these countries were also on both sides of the Ukraine war and seemed to have no qualms spending for a war.”

Many of the world’s greatest polluters, such as the United States, China, and India, were not slated to speak on Tuesday, although dozens of other heads of state and government were.

Even though U.S. Vice President Joe Biden won’t be there until next week, his team unveiled their pavilion at the COP27 site on Tuesday while Special Envoy John Kerry was touring the area.

The government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hoped that hosting the COP27 conference would provide it with an international legitimacy boost at a time when its economy was faltering.