Panel begins talks on Japan's midterm emissions cut target+

TOKYO, Nov. 25 Kyodo - A panel of environment, energy and economic experts held its first meeting Tuesday to help the government set a national midterm greenhouse gas emissions
reduction target next year ahead of key U.N. climate change talks in
Copenhagen.

The eight-member panel, led by former Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui,
agreed that they will steer discussions based on science, theory and
objectivity, so that they can draw conclusions that will address climate change
and energy security while ensuring economic growth.
The panel is scheduled to hold five or six more rounds of talks before
compiling an interim report around spring or later, a government official said.
The panel plans to hold a second meeting by the end of the year.
''We need an integral approach that involves the environment, energy and
economics as a way of identifying a target for 2020 or 2030,'' Fukui told
reporters after the first meeting at the Cabinet Office.
''Japan's (emissions reduction) plan must be an advanced one,'' Fukui said.
''We would like to give a good example so we can encourage emerging countries
to take action'' to combat global warming in partnership with developed
countries.
Japan has pledged to slash its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases by 60-80 percent by 2050 from current levels. But the government has
stopped short of unveiling a midterm reduction target, saying it will announce
one ''at an appropriate time next year.''
A midterm target is crucial not only for Japan but for other economies because
it will be the core of U.N. negotiations for a successor treaty to the
carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The negotiations are
scheduled to conclude at the Copenhagen conference in December next year.
According to the schedule, the panel will present the results of their study,
including several scenarios with specific reduction targets, to the public.
The government will set Japan's midterm target after conducting hearings with
industry, experts and nongovernmental organizations and closely monitoring
developments in U.N. climate change talks for a post-2012 framework.
During Tuesday's meeting, four Japanese research institutes -- the Research
Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, the Institute of Energy
Economics, the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Japan
Center for Economic Research -- presented their respective models for analysis
of greenhouse gas emissions as food for thought for future meetings.
==Kyodo