In their meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to cooperate in creating an effective, post-Kyoto Protocol framework to fight global warming, in which all major greenhouse gas-emitting nations participate.
Climate change will be a major issue at next year's Group of Eight summit at Lake Toya, Hokkaido. As Ms. Merkel pointed out, tough negotiations await, since the G8 countries lack consensus on such a framework. Mr. Abe's leadership ability to coordinate their views in creating a joint front toward achieving the goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will be tested.
At this year's G8 summit, which Ms. Merkel chaired, the United States and Russia opposed setting numerical goals for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. As a compromise, the G8 countries agreed to "seriously consider" the goal of halving such emissions by 2050. Big greenhouse gas emitters such as the U.S., China and India are outside the emission-cut regime of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls on industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels. This protocol expires in 2012.