On July 9, DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama made the following statement:

The Summit covered a broad range of themes and resulted in Leaders Declaration and documents, putting together various points, but it is regrettable that on several critical issues the summit did not produce more concrete, affirmative statements that would demonstrate the responsibilities of developed countries. Competing interests of various countries affected the degree of progress made at the summit and the G8 process itself is standing at a crossroads.

On the issue of tackling global warming, the G8 nations simply agreed to "share" long-term global goals, a position that does not clarify the responsibilities of developed countries. The Declaration of Leaders Meeting of the Major Economies (MEM) on Energy Security and Climate Change did not contain any numerical targets or time limits. Reference was made to mid-term goals for total greenhouse gas emissions reductions by individual developed countries, but again there were no numerical commitments, merely a pledge to achieve "ambitious" goals.

The G8 Chair's Summary did refer to "serious concern" over rising oil and food prices but did not outline a concrete mechanism for developed countries to co-operate over the problem of commodity speculation. Finally, while we welcome the inclusion of a reference to the "abduction issue" in the summary, the true value of the G8 nations, including Japan, will be determined not by words but by future action.

I believe that a major reason why discussion on all of the above issues produced only abstract statements is that Japan, the host country, did not take the lead in putting forward concrete goals and action. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda congratulated himself at the post-summit press conference, claiming the summit had achieved numerous results, but the Prime Minister went into the summit without any concrete goals and he cannot escape from the fact that he did not show any leadership.

In the future, Japan will bear responsibility for proactively implementing various measures to tackle the issues referred to above, but the Prime Minister's current stance suggests that it will be extremely difficult for Japan to take decisive action.

The DPJ believes that Japan, as the summit host, had a responsibility to actively take the initiative, and that is what the DPJ intends to do when we replace the current Fukuda administration.