Toyako, Japan - Japan, preparing for the high point of its presidency of the Group of Eight (G8), could have hardly chosen a more fitting location for July's summit focussing on climate change and protecting the environment. When the leaders of seven of the world's largest economies and Russia step out of the Hotel Windsor, the summit's venue at Toyako in northern Japan, they are to be met by breathtaking vistas.
From the top of a mountain, they can look down at picturesque lake Toya with wooded mountains framing the horizon.
Turning around, however, is less pleasant. The hotel, an eyesore built during the bubble years of the early 1990s, sticks out of the gentle rolling landscape like a run-aground passenger cruiser.
Yet, the luxury resort can boast one big advantage - it is accessible by only one narrow street, protecting the world leaders at the July 7-9 summit like a mighty medieval fortress.
The summit's host, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, labouring under domestic political pressures, intends to use the gathering to demonstrate his country's leadership in fighting climate change.
Promoting his so-called Fukuda Vision, the prime minister tried to set a good example and announced plans to reduce Japan's carbon emissions by 60 to 80 per cent by 2050.
But those hoping for Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States to agree at their summit on midterm targets, which would have to be met by 2020, were disappointed by Fukuda's remarks.
The G8 was "no forum" for that, he said.
Environmentalists like Kim Carstensen of the WWF, or World Wide Fund for Nature, agreed, regarding the UN-led climate negotiations as the main forum for those talks.
Yet, they said, the Toyako summit had to provide at least a clear indication that the G8, which includes some of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, was taking the problem of global warming seriously and was ready to set clear targets.
One person taking climate issues seriously is Isao Ito. The Japanese researcher from Numata, which like Toyako is located on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, wants to show off his village's green credentials ahead of the G8 summit.
Instead of using the usual electricity-gobbling air conditioners, Numata stores up to 2,500 tons of rice by using air cooled by 1,500 tons of snow, which is still an ample feature of Hokkaido's cold winters but might not remain so if climate change is allowed to go unchecked.
"This here is the world's first facility that uses snow to keep rice fresh," Ito said.
The rice not only stays cool until the summer but this method also cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions, he said.
The same principle is employed for cooling the purpose-built G8 media centre set up in the village of Rusutsu, 27 kilometres from the Hotel Windsor. The lower level is filled with snow so journalists inside can write about global warming in a cool atmosphere.
The climate-friendly structure is to be disassembled after the summit.
Concerned about the province's poor finances, Governor Harumi Takahashi was originally not too thrilled about hosting the summit and could only be swayed by government promises to keep costs down.
Hokkaido now serves as Japan's environmental showcase. Even the Ainu, the country's natives who often face discrimination, are now praised for their traditional lifestyle in harmony with nature.
Japan's Diet even passed a resolution urging the government to officially recognize the Ainu's status as an indigenous people. While it contained no concrete measures to support the Ainu, it demanded the establishment of an expert committee to advise the central government on Ainu issues.
Meanwhile, 73-year-old Soh Kuramoto is campaigning to preserve Hokkaido's forests by planting more than 20,000 trees on an abandoned golf course. He extracted promises from the owners not to cut down the trees for the next 50 to 100 years.
His hopes for the G8 summit, however, are limited as Japan is struggling to even fulfill its pledges to cut emissions made within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
"I put my hope rather on the way of thinking of the European countries," Kuramoto said.
