Japan will promote new aid programs to help developing countries take steps that not only cut greenhouse gas emissions but also address development issues such as pollution and poverty, government officials said Monday.
Tokyo will have to convince developing countries, which are generally reluctant to fight global warming over worries that curbing their greenhouse gas emissions could adversely affect their economic development, that the potential benefits of such measures outweigh the possible detriments.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will announce the plan at the Group of Eight summit starting Wednesday in Heiligendamm, Germany, as a way to encourage developing nations to take part in a new framework to fight global warming beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol will run out, the officials said.