As the torrential rains of Typhoon Hagupit flood the Philippines, driving millions of people from their homes, the Philippine government urged the United Nations climate change summit meeting in Lima, Peru, to push hard for a new international deal requiring all nations, including developing countries, to cut their use of fossil fuels.

Previously, Philippine negotiators — most notably, climate diplomat Naderev Saño, who shot to fame last year after staging a hunger strike in the wake of the deadly Typhoon Haiyan — have not been shy about demanding that the industrialized world cut its carbon emissions.

But now, the negotiators say, the Philippines is pledging cuts of its own and urging other developing nations to follow suit, a significant shift that they hope will advance global negotiations.

The announcement by the Philippines “builds on the dramatic U.S.-China announcement two weeks ago,” said Robert N. Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. “It shows that there can be a deal in which emerging economies and countries on the growth path from developed to developing are now willing to negotiate.”

The Philippines is the most-exposed large country in the world to tropical cyclones.