The next Group of Eight summit, which Japan will host in Toyako, Hokkaido, is less than four months away. The fight against global warming will be at the top of the agenda. As the host nation responsible for getting participating nations to take concerted action, Japan needs as soon as possible to work out convincing proposals for creating an international framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It also needs to make strenuous efforts to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions to fulfill its obligations under the protocol.
At last year's G8 summit, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed halving the global emission of greenhouse gases by 2050. But in a recent meeting of the Group of 20 environment and energy ministers held in Chiba, Japan's "bottom-up" approach to cut emissions received a rather cool reception. The approach focuses on improving energy-use efficiency in industrial sectors and calculating each sector's cuts to quantify a national target.
The Group of 20 includes the European Union, China, India, Brazil, South Korea and Australia, in addition to the G8 countries. Its members are responsible for about 80 percent of the global emission of greenhouse gases. Their meeting served as a preparatory meeting for July's G8 summit.