The Asian Development Bank has unveiled a new loan program to help emerging and developing economies fight climate change.

ADB President Asakawa Masatsugu spoke to reporters in the South Korean city of Incheon on Tuesday, as the bank opened its four-day annual meeting.

Asakawa said, "The most alarming challenge facing our region is the worsening impact of climate change."

He said, "The global battle against climate change will be won or lost in Asia and the Pacific."

He noted that since 2000, more than 40 percent of climate-related disasters in the world have occurred in the Asia-Pacific region.

Asakawa said the new program will allow the ADB to provide up to 15 billion dollars of loans to emerging and developing countries, as their decarbonizing efforts are especially important.

He added that government guarantees by industrialized countries, such as Japan and the United States, would enable the ADB to extend even larger loans.

Asakawa stressed that the world must take bold and urgent action, and that the ADB has a critical role to play.

The ADB has set a goal of providing loans totaling 100 billion dollars over about a decade starting from 2019 for measures against climate change.