国际英语新闻：Japan pledges Asia aid to fight climate change

SINGAPORE -- Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday unveiled a two-billion-dollar aid package to help developing Asian nations fight pollution and combat climate change.

The initiative, announced at a summit of Asian leaders, includes grants, soft loans and training programmes over five years, and is aimed at helping the region tackle global warming and push forward with economic development.

"The countries of East Asia are now facing serious environmental problems while achieving rapid economic growth, a situation that Japan once experienced," Fukuda said at a press conference following the summit.

"I want these countries to learn from the lessons and knowledge from Japan that overcame grave environmental disasters."

The new Japanese aid is aimed specifically at helping developing Asian countries tackle air and water pollution, improve sewage processing and boost preparedness for natural disasters.

"We will also use Japanese satellites to monitor forestry areas of East Asia and to measure greenhouse gas emission levels," Fukuda said, without specifying which countries would receive aid.

At Wednesday's summit, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea issued a separate declaration on fighting climate change.

Rafael Senga, Asia-Pacific energy coordinator for conservation group WWF, commended the Japanese fund and said other rich nations should follow suit to help large emerging economies "develop in a cleaner way".

The offer of Japan is very timely because it will help other countries achieve the targets that they have set and implement the laws that they have enacted, he said.

Japan has long relied on aid as a primary instrument of its foreign policy and considers Southeast Asia a key region to exert influence.

Japan is keen to share information to help other countries clean up the environment while ensuring economic growth.

Fukuda's pledge came ahead of crucial UN-backed global climate change talks next month on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

The Bali talks, expected to involve more than 100 governments, are intended to generate a global consensus on a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, named after the Japanese city where it was first negotiated.

Environmentalists and aid agencies warned in a report released Monday that decades of development in Asia would be reversed and the lives of millions of people threatened or disrupted by climate change.