Environmentalists and nongovernment organizations were quick to denounce Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's new climate change initiative June 9, calling it "insufficient" and "lacking essence" for not proposing a solid midterm greenhouse gas reduction target.

"The government can't pledge (a midterm goal) as it has been unsuccessful in cutting the nation's greenhouse gas emissions," said Mitsutoshi Hayakawa, managing director for NGO Citizens' Alliance for Saving the Atmosphere and the Earth. "This proposal is an impediment heading in to the Group of Eight summit."

The proposal advocates a 60 percent to 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2050 but stops short of setting a midterm target to 2020.

Environmentalists agreed that the absence of such a goal highlights the government's ineptitude in leading action against global warming.

Mika Obayashi, deputy director of the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, said Japan's inability to set a midterm target may hurt more than its reputation as host of the July G-8 summit.

Instead of setting quantifiable greenhouse gas emission reduction targets based on past or current output levels, Japan has promoted a "sectoral approach," which focuses on using optimal energy within each industrial sector.

Since some developing countries have expressed concern that the method is an attempt to evade national reduction targets, it was pivotal that Japan "make a pledge with a midterm target and clear away the doubts on the part of the developing countries," Obayashi said.