( dpa ) - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukoda announced Saturday in Davos plans by Japan to launch a 10 billion dollar fund to help developing countries cut their emissions.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Japanese leader made it clear that the environment would top the agenda planned for the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, Japan next July.
He also said Japan wanted to help set up global targets for energy efficiency.
Under his Cool Earth Promotion Programme, he promised to share technology on energy efficiency, work with developing countries and bring the "major emitters" into negotiations aimed at reaching a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change within two years.
Aiming at the most efficient use of energy was now "an obligation upon humanity" and extolled Japan as ahead of the field, Fukoda said.
"If the level of efficiency in Japan's power plant is achieved in the three countries of the US, India and China, the resulting CO2 emissions reductions would amount to some 1.3 billion tons, the equivalent of Japan's annual total emissions," he said.
"I propose to set a global target of 30 per cent improvement of energy efficiency by 2020," he added.
Japan, which relies on other countries for its energy resources, was committed to energy conservation and had doubled its real GDP without increasing overall energy consumption of the industry sector during the last 30 years.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) had warned that to avert catastrophe greenhouse gas emissions needed to peak in the next 10 to 20 years and be reduced by half by 2050.
Fukoda said he was proposing a fundamental rethinking of Japanese production systems, lifestyles, cities and transportation to shift Japan to a low-carbon society in the near future.
"We will seek to expand this low carbon society both at home and abroad and play a leading role in transforming the globe into a low carbon planet," he pledged.