Japan and the European Union called Wednesday for a «highly ambitious and binding» approach to battling climate change in a new international agreement to be concluded by 2009. The two sides, after an annual summit in Tokyo, also said they would explore a Japanese proposal to set different energy efficiency levels for different industries _ an idea that has drawn opposition from some developing countries. The United Nations is leading climate talks aimed at crafting a global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol when its first phase expires at the end of 2012. Japan had originally pushed for voluntary targets in the new pact for reducing emissions of «greenhouse» gases blamed for global warming, instead of the binding targets in the Kyoto Protocol. But Wednesday's statement suggested Japan's position was moving more in line with that of the EU, the Associated Press reported. «Japan and the EU stress that a highly ambitious and binding international approach is required to deal with the scale and urgency of the climate change challenge of promoting a low-carbon, high-growth global economy,» the statement said.
