Environment ministers from rich nations and other major greenhouse gas emitters will seek to build momentum for talks on emissions reduction targets this weekend in Japan, but agreement will be hard to reach.
Officials from the Group of Eight and big emerging economies, including China and India, meet from Saturday in Kobe, western Japan, as countries remain divided over the need for a global target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
G8 leaders agreed to seriously consider the mid-century target at last year's summit in Germany, a proposal backed by Japan, the EU and Canada.
But developing countries have balked at committing to the goal without the US doing more to reduce the emissions that cause global warming, posing a headache for Japan as it tries to encourage all major emitters to sign up at a G8 summit it hosts in July.
Japan said the three-day meeting of environment ministers would try to lay the groundwork for the July leaders' summit but breakthroughs were unlikely since any agreement would ultimately be left to heads of state.
"Consensus-building among ministers will be a major agenda, but we are not necessarily aiming for a final conclusion," Ryutaro Yatsu, councillor for global environment at the environment ministry, told Reuters yesterday.
"A major part of the chairman's summary will be agreement among the G8 and outreach countries, but I think there will be a small percentage of the agenda where we cannot reach a consensus."
Outreach countries include China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa.
Newspapers have reported that Japan would seek to take leadership on the issue before the summit by setting a target to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 per cent from current levels by 2050.
"'50 by 50' is a global target, so as an industrialised country, Japan should have a much more stringent target than a 50 per cent reduction," Mr Yatsu said, adding that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was likely to outline a new policy on climate change next month.
Another area of contention will likely be medium-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with environment ministers meeting as countries try to work out a UN climate pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012.
At UN-led talks for a new framework, Japan has promoted a sectoral approach to emissions goals, with curbs set for particular industries such as steel or cement that could be added up to a national target.
Developing countries have objected to the approach, arguing that the curbs could throttle their energy-intensive industries. They have insisted curbs should be imposed on rich nations alone.
Japan says understanding for the approach has grown among some countries, including China, although activists say Beijing remains suspicious despite a public show of support during President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan earlier this month.
"In a way we've already gone through a breakthrough on addressing the sectoral approach, by starting to discuss how this could be utilised rather than whether it is worthy of being used or not," said Koji Tsuruoka, director-general for global issues at Japan's foreign ministry.
"This is because people now appreciate the nature of the sectoral approach, not as some kind of a trap, with some kind of intention, it is a neutral tool," he said.
Also on the agenda at the weekend meeting are ways to slow the rate of extinctions of species and steps to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.