A top Japanese delegate attending the climate meeting at Honolulu in Hawaii said Wednesday that Japan appreciates China's engagement in the climate talks under UN framework and the two neighboring nations have great potential to cooperate on related issues.

"Officials from the two countries are working closely on the issue, and I believe there is a lot of potential in cooperation and coordination between the two sides in order to have a new climate framework after 2012, " Koji Tsuruoka, a director-general from Japan's foreign ministry told Xinhua on the sideline of the 2nd major economies meeting on energy security and climate change.

Both China and Japan are working very closely on a number of joint climate and environment projects, he noted.

At the international level, leaders of the two countries are committed to cooperation and coordination in the international negotiations about the new arrangement of reduction of greenhouse gas emission when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

During Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's visit to China last month, the two countries have reached two cooperation agreements on the climate change technologies and energy and environment, Tsuruoka noted.

(Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2008)