G7 to consider climate change fund
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TOKYO -Japan, Britain and the United States are looking to jointly propose the creation of a special fund designed to fight climate change, Jiji Press said Monday.
The three plan to make the proposal during a meeting of financial chiefs from the Group of Seven industrialised nations on February 9 in Tokyo, the news agency said.
The fund is mainly aimed at helping developing countries improve energy-saving technologies, Jiji said, adding that the World Bank is expected to manage it.
The three countries are to call on the other G7 members to back the plan and include it in their joint statement to be adopted at the end of the one-day meeting, it said.
Immediate confirmation of the report, which quoted unnamed sources, was not available.
Apart from the three countries, the G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany and Italy.
Japan has aimed to take the lead in debate over measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions when it hosts this year’s Group of Eight summit, which also includes Russia, from July 7 to 9 at the northern lakeside resort of Toyako.
The world’s second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.
Japan is far behind in meeting its Kyoto commitments as its economy recovers from recession in the 1990s.
But Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Saturday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that Japan will set its own target for cuts after Kyoto’s obligations expire in 2012.
Filed by Egor Ouzikov under Climate Change