Japanese officials say the country is dramatically scaling back its greenhouse gas emissions target after the Fukushima nuclear accident forced Japan to turn to fossil-fuel burning energy sources.
Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said the new target for 2020 - 3.8 per cent below 2005 levels - replaces an ambitious goal to slash emissions by one-quarter from 1990 levels, which had been hailed by environmentalists.
Japanese media said the new target - which accounts for Japan idling its nuclear reactors after the worst atomic accident in a generation - represents a 3.0 per cent rise over 1990 levels.
Suga, the government's top spokesman, said the earlier target set in 2009 by a government under then-prime minister Yukio Hatoyama was "totally unfounded".
"Our government has been saying... that the 25 per cent reduction target was totally unfounded and wasn't feasible," he told reporters in Tokyo.
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A foreign ministry official said the new target would likely be announced next week at a 12-day climate talks summit in Warsaw which kicked off on Monday.
