July 17 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy, plans to invest about $100 million by 2012 to help Asian developing countries cope with water shortages and floods.

The funds will come from the $200 million that President Lee Myung Bak has pledged to provide to neighboring nations for adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, Park Heung Kyeong, a counselor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said today in an interview.

Asia, with half the world’s population, has less available fresh water than any continent except Antarctica, Suzanne DiMaggio, director at the Asia Society, said in April. Glacier runoff is the primary water source for many nations in the region, and they are shrinking with climate change.

“Asian countries have depended on Himalayan glaciers as their main water sources may face water shortage as the glaciers are melting rapidly,” said Park, who also directs the nation’s task force on international cooperation at the Presidential Committee on Green Growth.

South Korea’s government announced a plan last month to spend 22.2 trillion won ($17.7 billion) over four years to upgrade the water quality and supply systems of the nation’s four major rivers.

Climate Change

In climate-change negotiations, South Korea proposes a registry that would list mitigation actions by developing countries and match them with pledges of financial and technological support by developed nations, Park said.

A successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is being negotiated this year under United Nations-sponsored talks culminating in a summit in Copenhagen. Developing nations are calling for advanced nations to take the lead in curbing emissions and impose more limits on heat-trapping gases.

Carbon emissions by South Korea, the world’s 10th-biggest producer of greenhouse gases, will keep rising “for a while” even as its growth rate has slightly declined over the past years, Park said.

Greenhouse-gas emissions rose to 599.5 million metric tons in 2006 from 594.4 million tons the previous year, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in February. That’s about double the 298.1 million tons produced in 1990, the base year for the Kyoto agreement that binds industrialized nations to emissions limits.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shinhye Kang in Seoul at skang24@bloomberg.netHeejin Koo in Seoul at hjkoo@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 17, 2009 06:42 EDT