Tokyo will host an informal ministerial meeting on global warming on Sept. 17 and 18, bringing together representatives from 21 countries and the European Union, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said Friday.
The government's top spokesman said that the meeting aims to facilitate a high-level exchange of views among major participants ahead of the Fourth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP4, to be held in November in Buenos Aires.
Former Environment Agency chief Hiroshi Oki, who chaired the COP3 meeting in Kyoto last December, will participate, along with Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, Environment Agency chief Kenji Manabe and Deputy Foreign Minister Nobuhiko Machimura, he said.