Japan's Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide has notified UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that his government will aim to achieve a carbon-neutral society by 2050.

Suga spoke to the head of the global body on the phone on Tuesday and explained that he announced the goal in his policy speech in the Diet the previous day.

NHK has learned that the Japanese government plans to set a new goal to have women take on more leadership positions in the workplace after it failed to achieve an initial target set for this year.

The government had aimed to increase the proportion of female leaders to around 30 percent by 2020. But there are still only a small number of women in management positions in corporations and the government.