Nusa Dua, December 9, 2009: Japan offered a loan worth JPY 37.44 billion to Indonesia on Thursday as the first concrete measure under Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s initiative aimed at helping developing nations cope with global warming.

Hatoyama and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended a signing ceremony for Japan’s fresh financial support, which was held shortly after their summit on Bali island.

The aid is designed to financially support Indonesia, which is struggling with a sharp drop in revenues in the wake of the global economic crisis, in implementing measures to combat global warming.

Under what Japan terms the “Hatoyama Initiative”, unveiled at a UN climate change summit in New York in September, the country plans to offer new financial and technical aid to developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take other actions to address climate change.

Hatoyama has pledged that Japan would trim its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels provided that other major emitters such as the United States, China and India join a new international framework on curbing global warming.