Tokyo Report: "Environment Model City" Project to Begin

Tokyo, April 13 (Jiji Press)--A long-term project to combat global warming in Japan is due to begin in the current fiscal year in 13 municipalities designated by the government as "environment model cities."

The 13 have bold targets for reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions. The city of Kyoto, for example, intends to cut its carbon
dioxide, or CO2, emissions by 60 pct by 2050 from the 1990 level, while the
municipal government of Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture is aiming for CO2
emissions in the city to be 50-60 pct lower than the 2005 level by 2050.
Many of the 13 municipalities are promoting solar power generation.
Among them, the city of Sakai in Osaka is set to begin operating in 2011 one
of the largest photovoltaic stations in Japan. This will provide power to
2,500 households.
The Sakai city office will also launch an intensive project in
fiscal 2009 to install photovoltaic facilities in local elementary and
junior high schools. In addition, it will add its own subsidies to those
from the central government to provide up to 140,000 yen per household for
the installation of such facilities. In the first year of the program, 1,000
homes are expected to become solar-powered.
Smaller municipalities in mountain areas often use biomass for
fuel. For example, Yusuhara, a town with a population of 4,000 in Kochi
Prefecture, will launch a project to cut up wood waste from lumber mills and
thinning operations for drying and the production of wood pellets. Since
these do not increase the overall amount of CO2 in the air when they are
burned, the town office will encourage local farmers to use them in place of
fuel oil to heat greenhouses.
The town of Shimokawa in Hokkaido, which has a population of 3,800,
plans to cultivate willows, as these can be cut down in five years for use
as charcoal and other forms of fuel. It plans to plant the trees over a
total area of 3,000 hectares within 20 years.
The project also envisages processing willows into bioethanol, at a
time when biofuels are blamed for driving up global food prices. "We will
produce biofuel without relying on edible plants" such as sugarcane and
corn, says a town official.
Shuzo Murakami, chief executive of the Building Research Institute,
an independent administrative agency, who was involved in the selection of
the 13 model cities from 82 applicants last year, calls for the
municipalities to "stimulate each other" in a competitive manner to pave the
way to making Japan a "low-carbon society."
To expand the model city project, the government set up a council
with the 13 and other municipalities in December last year.