Japan is pressing China to accelerate efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, echoing calls from the U.S. ahead of global climate talks later this month.

"It is important for the democratic countries to have one voice to encourage China to be more proactive,” Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told a BloombergNEF summit in New York on Wednesday. China’s "air pollution control could directly affect our people’s health and society. We are calling on China to move ahead of its 2060 carbon neutral pledge, and to urgently peak-out their emissions.”

The finger pointing is some of the harshest criticism of China’s green policies since President Xi Jinping announced last year a goal to become net-zero by 2060, a decade later than the date pledged by other key economies, including Japan.