Japan’s new prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has chosen the environment as a key policy area to focus on. Out of the gate, his environment minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, has stressed the importance of acting to curb global warming. And Kawaguchi and Takeo Hiranuma, the country’s trade minister, planned to meet yesterday with top officials from the Japanese auto industry to ask them to make sure the supply of low-emission vehicles keeps up with demand. The prime minister instructed his cabinet yesterday to replace the government’s fleet of vehicles with low-emission vehicles by 2005.
