TOKYO : Japan is expected to pledge US$10 billion in aid to developing countries over five years to help them combat the effects of global warming, according to the Nikkei business daily Thursday.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to make the announcement either in parliament or at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month, the newspaper added without citing sources.

A Japanese government official confirmed a package was being considered but was unable to give any details.

"Nothing is concrete as of today," Takeshi Akamatsu, project manager at the foreign ministry's international cooperation department, told AFP.

"We have yet to decide what the exact contents of the aid package would be and it is undecided when Prime Minister Fukuda will make the announcement."

According to the Nikkei, the 1.1 trillion-yen assistance will likely focus on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for warming the Earth's atmosphere, as well as mitigating the effects of disasters associated with global warming, and programmes to promote solar power.

Japan is also expected to boost the efficiency of China's aging coal-fired power plants, the main contributors to that country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Assisting emerging economies cut their emissions is part of former prime minister Shinzo Abe's "Cool Earth 50" pledge to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by half from the current level by 2050 and to build a low carbon society.

The world's second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is also the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Japan is well behind in meeting its Kyoto targets and it has been criticised by environmentalists for not advocating compulsory targets for when Kyoto's obligations expire in 2012.

The government is expected to host a series of meetings on energy-saving measures later this month ahead of this year's Group of Eight summit of major world leaders where climate change is high on the agenda. - AFP/ch