Ahead of next month's key U.N. conference on climate change, the government plans to unveil a new aid plan that would boost Japan's financial contributions to help developing nations fight global warming, Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said.
After the first day of a two-day ministerial meeting held in Copenhagen to prepare for next month's conference, known as COP15, Ozawa stressed Monday that the government is considering an aid plan under the "Hatoyama Initiative" that will be repackaged with the previous administration's assistance.
Throwing support behind developing nations in their efforts to fight global warming is one of the key issues in negotiations on a new international framework after the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Asked about the prospects of reaching a political agreement on key elements of the post-Kyoto framework, Ozawa said: "We now have a very high chance of agreement. If we can agree on the basics, that will make it easy to work out its details at the working level."