TOKYO — Japan will accept numerical targets to cut global
warming emissions in a new climate change pact, reversing its stance which came
under fire at last month’s UN-led talks over the deal, a newspaper reported on
Sunday.
The Mainichi Shimbun said Japan plans to present a proposal
to divide nations into not only developed and developing countries, but also
into a third group, that would include China and India, and set targets for each
group.
Japan will also set up a five-year, $10 billion "finance
mechanism" to back up developing nations’ efforts to tackle global warming with
low-interest loans, the paper said.
At talks in Bali this month, nations agreed on a two-year
"roadmap" to adopt a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the main existing
plan for combating global warming, beyond 2012.
But it did not include a European Union-backed emissions cut
target, which Japan, along with the United States, had rejected to the criticism
of environmentalists.
Mainichi said Japan, which will host next year’s Group of
Eight summit and has made the environment as its top agenda, decided to change
its position after seeing the international outcry.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will announce the
decision at a gathering of world economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland, next
month, and Japan will come up with the new targets in time for the G8 Summit,
the paper added.
Japan is the world’s fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for
global warming, behind the United States, China, India and Russia.
