Tokyo will keep up pressure on Washington to join the Kyoto climate treaty ahead of key talks on the global warming pact next month, Japan's environment minister said today.
But Ms Yoriko Kawaguchi did not say whether Japan will move ahead and ratify the pact if the United States sticks to its decision to abandon the 1997 treaty.
"With the US as the largest emitter, it goes without saying that any major undertaking internationally to meet global warming will be hindered by a lack of US participation," she told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "So it is crucial to have the US participate."
Ms Kawaguchi said she hoped to visit Washington soon to make another effort to persuade the Americans to back the protocol, noting that US President Mr George W. Bush has said he was willing to listen to the views of US allies.
President Bush decided in March to abandon the Kyoto protocol saying it would hurt the US economy, and last week he called it "fatally flawed".
The 1997 deal calls for industrialised countries to trim output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by an average of 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
For the pact to take legal effect, it must be ratified by 55 states representing 55 per cent of the total man-made output of carbon dioxide.