Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda yesterday unveiled a US$2 billion aid package to help developing Asian nations fight pollution and combat climate change.
The initiative, announced by Fukuda at a summit of Asian leaders, includes soft loans and training programs over five years, and is aimed at helping the region tackle global warming while pushing forward with economic development.
The package "includes loan and grant aid as well as technological training, targeting East Asian countries," a Japanese official said, without specifying which nations would receive aid.
"For ASEAN nations, the efforts to address climate change must not hinder them from seeking development and economic prosperity," another official said.
Yesterday's summit included the 10 members of ASEAN, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The summit issued a declaration on fighting climate change.
The new Japanese aid is aimed specifically at helping developing Asian countries tackle air and water pollution, as well as improve sewage processing.
Japan has long relied on aid as a primary instrument of its foreign policy and considers Southeast Asia a key region to exert international influence.
Pollution in China is already affecting parts of western Japan, and Japan is keen to share information to help other countries clean up the environment while ensuring economic growth.
Indonesia will host a conference on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol next month in Bali. The protocol sets limits on emissions by developed nations, but the US and Australia have refused to join it because it exempts major polluters, China and India.
Australia, the world's worst greenhouse gas polluter per capita, says the emission targets imposed on it could hurt Australian industries while handing competitive advantages to developing countries.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters yesterday there were signs India and China have recognized they need to take action to stabilize and reduce emissions.
"They are not going to take the view that only developed countries should deal with this issue," Downer said. "I think there has been a turning of the tide in terms of China and India's position on climate change."
China's booming economy has propelled it past the US as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the atmospheric pollutant that is primarily responsible for global warming.
Two-thirds of China's power comes from coal, which releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other energy source. Over the next five years, the country expects to complete at least one new coal-fired power plant a week.
In India, where several automakers are competing to provide affordable cars to the country's enormous middle class, there were 300,000 cars registered last year in the capital New Delhi alone.
The government acknowledges that it expects the country's emissions to grow fivefold by 2031, which would put India about where the US is now.
The East Asia Summit was expected to call on members to work to reduce by at least 25 percent their energy intensity -- the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product -- by 2030.
East Asian countries also will adopt an "aspirational goal" of expanding their combined forest cover by at least 15 million hectares by 2020 and fight deforestation.
ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS