Bangkok  - Germany on Wednesday launched a "climate initiative" with Thailand, providing 9 million euros (410 million baht) to projects designed to assist the South-East Asian country to combat global warming.

The budget, to be spaced out over the next three years, was being provided by the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety to six projects in Thailand that aim to reduce carbon emissions or cope with the effects of climate change.

Deputy Minister Michael Mueller said at a ceremony marking the launch of the German-Thai initiative that Germany funds climate change projects at home and worldwide through the sale of carbon-dioxide certificates through an emissions-trading system in Germany.

The German ministry has launched similar climate initiatives in China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In Thailand, Germany is planning to help finance projects on formulating the government's climate policy; improving the energy efficiency of medium-sized businesses; promoting climate protection in the tourism industry; establishing environmentally friendly palm-oil plantations for producing biodiesel fuel; improving energy efficiency on Khao Island in Phang Nga province, which was hard hit by the 2004 tsunami; and supporting the construction of a solar-thermal-bio-energy power plant.

Two of the projects focus on Thailand's tourism industry, which has not only led to widespread environmental destruction but is also deemed a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

"To develop environmentally friendly tourism is utterly important to us because Thailand remains the most popular tourist destination from Germany," German Ambassador Hanns Heinrich Schumacher said. (dpa)