TOKYO: The man expected to become Japan's next prime minister said Monday his government will follow through on a campaign pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020.
It is a more aggressive goal than the previous administration. In June, Prime Minister Taro Aso announced a plan to cut emissions by 15 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.
"Japan's change in government will bring a major shift to our climate change policies, through international negotiations for the future of human society, and I want to begin in a way that is said to have made a major contribution," Yukio Hatoyama said at an environmental forum in Tokyo.
Hatoyama leads the Democratic Party of Japan, the landslide winner in last month's national elections. He is expected to be chosen as the new prime minister next week.
One of his campaign promises was to cut greenhouse emissions by 25% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
Aso's target, while matching levels pledged by the European Union and the US, was widely criticized as inadequate by environmentalists.
The various emission targets set by the world's major economies are under scrutiny ahead of a December conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen on a new agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Hatoyama also said if elected, he would attend a gathering of world leaders to discuss climate change at United Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 22.
