Environment ministers and high-level officials from G-20 members gathered Saturday in Chiba, east of Tokyo, to talk about a post-Kyoto framework aimed at better tackling with global climate change.

The two-day fourth ministerial meeting of the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development is the first in a series of ministerial meetings in the run-up to the Group of Eight summit slated for July in northern Japan's Hokkaido.

Ichiro Kamoshita, Japanese Minister of Environment, said at the opening ceremony that in order to avoid a disaster of global warming, the international community has to build up a framework participated by all major carbon dioxide emitters to stop the rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 10 to 20 years.

British former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who attended the opening ceremony as a special guest, highlighted developed nations ' responsibility in global efforts against climate change.

"Per capita GHG emissions are over 20 tons per year in the USA; in Europe and Japan over 10 tons; ...... The developed nations have industrialized and, in doing so, created the problem. The developing world now wants to industrialize," Blair said in his keynote speech.

He reminded attendees that the goods produced by developing countries are consumed by consumers in the developed world, and expressed his understanding that no developing nations are to forgo their economic expansion.

"It is not just to expect them to do so, " the former British premier added.

Energy efficiency and technologies assisting anti-global warming efforts are also agenda items to be discussed at the meeting.

At the meeting, the Japanese government is scheduled to introduce and explain the importance of 21 innovative technologies it identified as may help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, such as near-zero emissions coal-fired power plants, advanced nuclear power, fuel cell vehicles, biofuels, and steelmaking with hydrogen and next-generation lighting systems, Japanese officials told reporters.

G-20 members include almost all major GHG emitters whose industries account for some 80 percent of such emissions around the world. The meeting will conclude with a report which will be submitted to this year's G-8 summit.

(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2008)