Japan Climate Change Target Slated

Speaking at climate change discussions currently taking place in Germany, Japan’s Prime Minister, Taro Aso, has announced that the country will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 15 per cent by 2020- a target environmentalists have slated, since this 15 per cent by 2020 reduction works out to around an eight per cent drop below 1990 figures.  This is 12 per cent below the planned average for countries within the European Union.

The German talks precede the December 2009 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting, at which a replacement Kyoto Protocol deal is scheduled to be solidified.

As far as some environmental figures are concerned, Japan’s aim is insufficient encouragement to other developed countries to put their own greenhouse gas reduction strategies in place.  “The target is not strong enough to convince developing nations to sign up for a new climate change pact”, environmental policies professor, Hidefumi Kurasaka, stated.

Japan’s Emission Reduction Plan

Prime Minister Aso stressed, however, that Japan’s emission reduction plan was comparable to the European Union’s, since “flexible mechanisms” like  carbon trading schemes did not figure in it.

According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Kim Carstensen, however, Japan’s effective eight per cent cut from 1990 emission levels was little improvement over the six per cent by 2012 figure determined twelve years when the Kyoto Protocol was implemented.  “Prime Minister Aso's plan is appalling”, Carstensen – who heads the WWF’s global climate initiative – said, adding: “[the plan]...would mean that Japan effectively gives dirty industries the freedom to pollute without limits for eight years.”

Japan’s government has highlighted how Japan’s overall energy efficiency practices exceed those of other developed nations.  Per capita emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, for example, are presently about 50 per cent of those for people living in the United States or in Australia.

Japanese Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In 2008, Yasuo Fukada – the previous Japanese Prime Minister – stated that Japanese greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by up to 4/5ths by the middle of this century, simultaneously suggesting that the shorter-term, 2020 target would fall roughly in line with that of the EU.  This policy, however, has not carried over into the new presidency.

The IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a division of the United Nations) has advocated that developed countries implement greenhouse gas emission cuts of up to 40 per cent by 2020.  In comments made during the current German climate change talks, Yvo de Boer – Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – indicated that much still had to be done.

“We're still a long way long way from the ambitious emission reduction scenarios of the IPCC that are a kind of beacon in terms of what industrialised countries need to do if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change”, he stated.

He conceded, however, that some nations were yet to submit concrete reduction scenario plans, and that varying baselines were being used.

“The challenge that we face from here on is to get the list complete, and then get into a discussion on comparability of effort, see how we can increase the level of ambition and continuously keep in the corner of our eye that beacon from the IPCC in terms of the scientific necessity”, de Boer stressed.