By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - Britain is opposed to Japan's proposal for a climate-change approach based on industrial sectors to replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said on Friday.

Although full details of Japan's plan have yet to be announced, reports say the sectoral approach would involve countries introducing specified energy-saving technologies on a sectoral basis.

Such a system could favour Japan, many of whose industries are already relatively energy efficient.

"That's not the overall approach that Britain favours," Wicks said in an interview in Tokyo, ahead of a meeting of environment and energy officials from the top 20 emitting countries.

"You can't mess around with this. There needs to be clear international targets and they need to be translated into targets for nation states," he added.

He said governments needed to be held accountable for hitting targets and that this would be difficult under a sectoral approach.

"We've got to monitor these things. If you have a sectoral approach it's not quite clear how you'd monitor it," Wicks said. "Would they be mandatory or voluntary? I don't think, to be blunt, that fits the bill really."

Japan, set to host an environment-themed G8 summit of industrialised nations in July, says its favoured approach could make it easier for developing countries to join the battle against climate change.

Ahead of the summit, Tokyo has begun to research a cap-and-trade system, long opposed by its powerful industrial lobby. Wicks said Japan would be a vital presence in any future international emissions trading scheme.

"It may be a little ambitious at the moment to think about an international emissions trading scheme. But that's the kind of place we need to be," Wicks said.

"If you don't have one of the world's leading economies into that kind of structure, into that kind of carbon market, I think it becomes a problem," he said. Japan's participation might help encourage China to join, in turn speeding up China's introduction of expensive low-emission technology, he said.

"If through a cap-and-trade scheme you can begin to quantify financially the advantages of zero or low carbon technologies, that brings forward the development," Wicks said.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds)

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