Japan to sell climate fund at G-8 talks

Japan will use today's opening of the Group of Eight finance ministers' meeting in Osaka to rally support and contributions for two multilateral climate-change funds.

On Monday, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced that Japan would donate up to $1.2 billion (about 129 billion yen) for the funds it plans to launch with the United States and Britain.

"Japan's efforts alone will not solve the problems of global warming," Fukuda told a news conference on his climate-change initiatives. "International society must work on the problems together."

The global economy, climate change and rising prices of crude oil and food will top the agenda of the two-day meeting in preparation for the G-8 summit in Hokkaido from July 7 to 9.

The Climate Investment Funds, to be set up at the World Bank later this year, are designed to help developing countries cut greenhouse gases through clean technologies and ease damage caused by global warming.

At a news conference today, Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Alistair Darling, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, will call on other industrialized economies to come on board.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick will also attend.

The United States and Britain had announced that they would contribute $2 billion and 800 million pounds (about 170 billion yen), respectively, over three years.

Other than the three lead donors, which will together chip in nearly $4.8 billion, Australia is the only country to have pledged contributions.

The United States has said it aims to raise up to $10 billion with other G-8 members and other countries, although the target is widely considered overly ambitious.

It remains to be seen whether many countries will follow suit soon.

Critics have said it is unclear how the new funds can be distinguished from similar existing arrangements, such as the Global Environment Facility.

According to news reports from Paris this week, a French government official said the country plans to raise the issue of whether the funds would overlap unnecessarily with other initiatives at the meeting of G-8 finance ministers.

Japan, the United States and Britain expect that the new funding mechanism will encourage developing countries, such as China and India, to take part in U.N. negotiations on an international framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

In Congressional testimony last week, the U.S. treasury undersecretary for international affairs, David McCormick, said the initiative is necessary to secure a deal on climate change.

"I believe that it will contribute to building the kind of trust between developed and developing countries that will be necessary if a new U.N. climate arrangement is to be reached," he said. (IHT/Asahi: June 13,2008)