With only a few days to go until the Group of Eight summit gets under way in Hokkaido, Japanese diplomats were still struggling to find ways to achieve progress — no matter how small — over last year's G8 gathering.
The central issue this time around will be climate change, but sharp disagreements remain over whether any goals should be set for each country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Foreign Ministry officials have indicated there is scant reason to think numerical targets will be set.
According to a senior Foreign Ministry official, the tentative goal for Tokyo now is to produce something at least a little more substantive than the vague agreement that came out of the 2007 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, to "consider seriously" the target of halving global emissions of green house gases by 2050.