The ministerial meeting on climate change that starts today is an important event in laying the groundwork for the upcoming U.N. conference to fight global warming, visiting British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi on Wednesday.
Obuchi told Prescott that he hopes the two-day meeting in Tokyo will be successful, according to Foreign Ministry officials.
The fourth session of the Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is scheduled to be held in November in Buenos Aires.
Later in the day, Prescott told Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura that industrialized countries and developing nations should promote dialogue to tackle issues on reducing carbon-dioxide emissions, they said.
Prescott told Komura that industrialized nations should not attach conditions to entering further talks to combat global warming, such as a commitment from developing countries to cut their emissions, the officials said.