Japan offers Indonesia $400m climate funding

Japanese officials said yesterday that they would offer a $400m (£244m) loan to Indonesia to help tackle global warming, as part of efforts to increase funding for clean technology and climate adaptation projects in developing economies.

Reports in the Japan Times claim that recently elected Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama made the offer to Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this weekend during a meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit at the Thai beach town of Hua Hin.

"I would like the yen loan to be used for measures to tackle climate change, and hopefully it would be used in a measurable and verifiable manner," Hatoyama said, according to the Japan Times online.

Yudhoyono thanked Hatoyama for the offer while noting that Indonesia is working to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, primarily through initiatives to reduce deforestation, the Japan Times reported. The move comes just weeks after Yudhoyono told other world leaders that Indonesia was working on a plan to cut emissions by 26 per cent below business-as-usual levels by 2020.

The loan offer is the first concrete measure under the so-called Hatoyama Plan to increase financial and technical assistance to developing countries to help address the problem of climate change.

On Saturday Hatoyama also urged his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, to make an international commitment on climate change, saying it was vital to a deal being reached at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

In related news, European leaders will meet this week in an attempt to finalise the EU's negotiating position ahead of the Copenhagen Summit and hammer out the scale of the climate change funding the EU will offer developing countries.

Chancellor Alistair Darling last week called on EU countries to commit €10bn a year in funding to developing countries, as part of a €100bn global package. Darling said the UK would commit to provide €1bn as part of the proposed deal, but the talks ended without agreement, leaving heads of state to attempt to finalise the deal this week.