INTERVIEW - Japan may weaken CO2 target if no global pact

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan could weaken its target for a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 if all major emitters do not reach agreement on an ambitious global climate pact, the environment minister said on Friday.

Countries are in fierce negotiations before a Dec. 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen for a broader, tougher agreement to fight climate change beyond 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends. "The possibility is not zero," Sakihito Ozawa told Reuters in an interview when asked if Japan could change its target, based on 1990 emission levels, if there was no ambitious agreement.

He declined to say what alternative target Japan had in mind.

"As environment minister, I want to go ahead with this pledge, but the government announced it with a precondition at the United Nations (climate change summit last month) so of course it could change," he said.

Japan's new government pledged its emissions reduction target when it took power last month, but has said it is premised on a deal on ambitious goals being agreed by major emitters, including China and the United States.

The target, tougher than one set by the previous government, has been part of Japan's aim to play a bigger negotiating role ahead of the U.N.-backed climate talks in Copenhagen, where environment ministers from about 190 nations will gather to hammer out a deal.

Talks so far have stalled over how to share the burden in cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, and over how rich nations will help developing nations with money and technology to fight climate change.