During Wen Jiabao's visit to Tokyo, the Premier committed to participate in talks on a framework to limit greenhouse gases, after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders issued a statement promising active participation in the process of setting up a new system of regulating emissions from 2013 onwards.
China is expected by the International Energy Agency to become the world's biggest carbon emitter within the next year or two. The United States, which currently holds the top position, is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, citing among other reasons the lack of emission limits for developing countries like China. The accord expires in 2012 and is widely expected that some form of cap-and-trade system will be implemented, whereby developed nations, including Japan and the US, will buy emission credits from developing nations like China in order to meet specific carbon-limitation targets.