Japan's strategy of providing incentives to various stakeholders together with building up mobilisation on environmental issues has worked well for the country.

"We identified four sources of carbon dioxide emission, industry, commercial buildings, traffic and households", said Ryokichi Hirono, member of the Central Environment Council of Japan, and chair of  the award committee of the Global Environment Fund of Japan.

Experts then devised different strategies for each, he added.

Smaller units which achieved lower emissions received incentives like financial assistance or loans, while big units got tax benefits.

Commercial buildings, including both government and private offices, were encouraged to set up solar panels on roof tops, and take up planting of trees to reduce heat generated by buildings.

The local governments were incentivised by the central government to aid the commercial buildings and schools to lower emissions.

A resolution had been adopted to fix the temperature in air-conditioned environments inside offices at 28 degree Celsius, and not below, as carbon dioxide generation was indirectly linked to the energy used to lower interior temperatures.

In parallel, Japan's ministries of environment and economy trade and industry (METI) providing cash payments of $3000 to households that installed solar panels between 2002 and 2005, thereby pushing up sales.

Manufacturers went for mass production, which brought down costs, and reduced the prices of the panels further, to around $1200 now.

The cash scheme had been discontinued but 1 million households were now using solar panels and more and more were installing low cost panels.

Also, the Toyota and Honda gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles were instant hits, with the Toyota Prius selling well in the US as well.

The buyers of hybrid vehicles received tax incentives from the government, like a 30 per cent tax cut.

Japan also reported success in being able to ban all forms of non-bio-degradable plastics from daily use through awareness building among users.

All plastics now used in Japan were not made from petrochemicals and were completely bio-degradable in nature, Hirono said.

Awareness building among youth led environment-conscious youth to buy from companies that had environment friendly policies and this trend was noticed in campus interviews too, claimed Hirono.

On the 'global common' character of pollution, Hirono warned  that the US nuclear deal with China had caused problems on improper handling of nuclear power plants and management of nuclear wastes.

Japan had finalized a report on environmental policies for the 21st century, which the Prime Minister would take up in the next G8 meeting, with the focus being on the three areas of rejuvenation of bio-diversity, global warming, and re-cycling.