Japan vows to cut emissions by 15% below 2005 by 2020

TOKYO, June 10 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday that Japan will reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 15 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, vowing to lead global efforts
to fight global warming as countries strive to craft a new carbon-capping pact
this year.
Speaking at a news conference, Aso said that for industrial and developing
countries, emissions need to peak by 2015 and 2025, respectively, in order to
achieve the goal of halving global emissions of carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases by 2050.
Aso said the 2020 target, which translates into an 8 percent cut from 1990
levels, is ''extremely ambitious'' because the figure does not take into
account emission cuts that can be achieved through forest absorption of CO2 and
emissions trading.
''I believe the target, together with Japan's high energy efficiency, will
strengthen our position and leadership'' at U.N. climate change negotiations,
which will culminate in December in Copenhagen, and the July summit of the
Group of Eight nations in Italy, Aso said.
Japan's target ''goes beyond the midterm targets of Europe, which stand at a 13
percent reduction from the 2005 level, and that of the Obama administration in
the United States, which is a 14 percent reduction from the same year,'' he
said.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to bring U.S. emissions back to 1990
levels by 2020, effectively meaning that Washington will slash emissions by
about 14 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
Environmentalists criticized Japan's 2020 target as not ambitious enough to
lead the fight against climate change.
Aso's plan is ''appalling'' because an 8 percent cut from 1990 levels means
that Japan would have slashed only 2 percent more by 2020 from the 6 percent
cut it pledged for 2008-2012 from 1990 levels in the Kyoto Protocol, said Kim
Carstensen, director of the Global Climate Initiative at World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) International.
''We have waited a long time for Japan to finally inform the world about its
emissions plans, and today we were presented something dangerously lacking any
level of ambition,'' Carstensen said. ''Aso's decision, influenced by polluters
rather than the public, makes reaching a good (climate) deal even harder.''
Yurika Ayukawa, climate policy consultant to Greenpeace International, said
Japan ''completely failed to create new businesses and employment by promoting
more efficient and advanced technological development as the country shifts its
economic and industrial structures into low-carbon ones through the imposition
of a strict reduction target.''
Some analysts, however, said that the target is a ''politically appropriate
level.''
''I think the target has two meanings,'' said Shinichi Mizuta, a foreign policy
analyst at Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. ''First, Japan secures a minimum
level to negotiate a new climate deal. But the target also takes into account
domestic industry's concerns that a sharp reduction would undermine Japan's
competitiveness.''
Mizuta said that although the target matches those of the United States and the
European Union, it is weaker than levels demanded by developing countries such
as China, suggesting that the 2020 target alone would be insufficient to lead
U.N. negotiations for a new carbon-capping framework to succeed the Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012.
''Along with the target, Japan needs to consider extending additional official
development assistance and technological assistance to developing countries as
a single package in an effort to encourage developing countries to take action
on climate change,'' he said.
Emissions reduction targets for industrial countries for 2020 and mitigation
actions by emerging economies such as China and India represent a major focus
of U.N. negotiations for a post-2012 framework. The talks are scheduled to
conclude at a key U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.
The 15 percent reduction target is close to one of six options that a
government study panel had studied as Japan's emissions target for 2020, which
ranged from a 4 percent reduction to a 30 percent cut from 2005 levels.
The target of a 15 percent cut is one percentage point higher than one option
of a 14 percent decrease. Aso told the news conference that lifting the margin
by one percentage point would cost Japan an additional 10 trillion yen.
Aso said it is appropriate for Japan to make 2005 a base year from which the
country will reduce emissions, citing base years of 2005 for the United States,
2006 for Canada and 2000 for Australia. ''Europe may be the only one that
refers to 1990 for a base year,'' he said.
The premier said Japan will make ''utmost efforts'' to develop and promote
widespread use of innovative technologies and nuclear power as a way of
achieving Tokyo's long-term target of cutting emissions by 60 to 80 percent by
2050 from current levels.
''Analysts show that combining such efforts with the attainment of the midterm
target will lead to a reduction in greenhouse gases by about a quarter by 2030
and approximately 70 percent by 2050,'' he said. ''Thus this midterm target
will pave the way to attaining Japan's long-term target.''
Aso called for the involvement of ''all major emitters including the United
States and China,'' the world's two biggest polluters, in a post-2012
framework.
Critics say the Kyoto pact is ineffective as it covers only 30 percent of the
world's emissions and fails to include the United States and China as well as
other emerging economies that will produce the bulk of the increase in
emissions in the coming decades.
==Kyodo