(Recasts with prime minister comments, changes dateline) By Isabel Reynolds ROME, June 4 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said on Wednesday mid-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions were needed, but expressed doubt about whether G8 members could agree on them at the summit he hosts next month. Group of Eight (G8) leaders agreed last year in Germany to consider halving global emissions by mid-century, a proposal favoured by Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada but opposed so far by the United States and Russia. About 190 nations have agreed to negotiate by the end of 2009 a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 37 advanced nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But wide gaps exist within the G8 and between rich and poorer countries over how to share the burden for fighting climate change, which experts say causes droughts, rising seas and severe storms. "I think definite figures are needed to some extent," Fukuda told reporters when asked about mid-term targets. "If the basis is made clear, then each country can announce how it will achieve them," he said in Rome, where he has been attending the United Nations summit on the world food crisis. But he cast doubt on how much Japan could achieve as G8 host. G8 environment ministers last month urged their leaders to set a global target of halving emissions by 2050, but stopped short of suggesting specific interim targets. The European Union has in place a target of 20 percent cuts by 2020 and wants others to follow suit, and emerging countries insist rich nations should take the lead by setting such goals. Washington wants the main forum for emissions cuts to be the Major Emitters or Major Economies grouping, which was set up by the United States last year and includes Brazil, China and India and other industrial powers alongside the G8. "If each country is working on a different basis, then it won't lead to policy, it will just be political propaganda," Fukuda said. DOMESTIC VISION Fukuda is expected to announce a domestic climate change policy this month which media say will include a target for cutting emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050, but policy-makers are bickering over whether and how to set an interim target. "Japan is the (G8) chair. If we just announce something that makes us look good and accuse the others of not keeping up, I don't think that will achieve a unified stance," Fukuda said. "At the moment, targets are under consideration." In an effort to show its climate change credentials, Japan's main opposition Democratic Party submitted a bill on Wednesday targetting a 25 percent cut in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels, and a 60 percent reduction by 2050. The bill has no chance of becoming law without support from the ruling coalition. Japan is also debating whether to introduce an emissions trading scheme to fight climate change, and the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday that Fukuda's policy statement would include a call to study how to introduce such a system. Companies and governments around the world are turning to emissions trading in a carbon market worth $64 billion last year, and British and German leaders this week urged Japan to join a proposed global system. Cap and trade schemes force participants -- often energy-intensive industries -- to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Japan has a voluntary scheme launched in 2005, and this month a working panel organised by the Environment Ministry drafted four options for a carbon trading scheme. But industries such as steel remain opposed out of concern it will reduce their global competitiveness. The Nikkei said Japan's steel and power industries had softened their opposition to a carbon trading scheme, but Nippon Steel Corp said in a statement there had been no change in its stance. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan also flatly denied in a statement that the industry had agreed to sign off on a carbon trade scheme with certain conditions. (Additional reporting by Linda Sieg, Yuko Inoue and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo; Editing by Linda Sieg and Jerry Norton)
A house is seen beside a landslide-blocked river at the foot of a landslide at a mountain in Pingtong town of earthquake-hit Pingwu county, Sichuan Province June 4, 2008. The largest ...
Climate change
