Japan to back targets for new climate deal: report

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will accept numerical targets to cut global warming emissions in a new climate change pact, reversing its stance which came under fire at this month's U.N.-led talks over the deal, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Mainichi Shimbun said Japan plans to present a proposal to divide nations into not only developed and developing countries, but also into a third group, that would include China and India, and set targets for each group.

Japan will also set up a five-year, $10 billion "finance mechanism" to back up developing nations' efforts to tackle global warming with low-interest loans, the paper said.

At talks in Bali this month, nations agreed on a two-year "roadmap" to adopt a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the main existing plan for combating global warming, beyond 2012.

But it did not include a European Union-backed emissions cut target, which Japan, along with the United States, had rejected to the criticism of environmentalists.

Mainichi said Japan, which will host next year's Group of Eight summit and has made the environment as its top agenda, decided to change its position after seeing the international outcry.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will announce the decision at a gathering of world economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland, next month, and Japan will come up with the new targets in time for the G8 Summit, the paper added.

Japan is the world's fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, behind the United States, China, India and Russia.

(Reporting by George Nishiyama; Editing by Jerry Norton)