DPJ to pledge 25% emissions cut versus government's 8% by 2020

TOKYO, July 26 Kyodo -
The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan will pledge a 25 percent cut in
Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels, against the
government's 8 percent reduction target, in its platform for the upcoming
general election, party officials said Sunday.
Bidding to wrest power from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition,
the DPJ has decided to set out in its manifesto an emissions target that is
more ambitious than the one announced last month by Prime Minister Taro Aso,
the officials said.
The figure, however, is the same as that pledged by the LDP's coalition
partner, the New Komeito party, in its platform for the Aug. 30 House of
Representatives election.
The DPJ's strategy would entail the adoption of a cap-and-trade system under
which the emissions of each company would be capped at a certain level and
quotas could be traded between companies, the officials said.
Emissions trading was taken up as an effective way to control heat-trapping
gases at the Group of Eight summit earlier this month in L'Aquila, Italy, but
Tokyo is reluctant to implement such a system in light of opposition from the
business sector.
The DPJ will also introduce a feed-in tariff, or minimum price standard system,
that would oblige electric utilities to buy all renewable energy output at a
fixed, incentive price to overcome cost disadvantages compared with fossil
fuels, according to the officials.
But the main opposition party backed down over a proposal in its climate
strategy adopted in 2007 to introduce an environment tax, which has been dubbed
an ''anti-global warming tax.''
In its platform for the election, the DPJ vows to ''consider creating'' a green
tax ''by taking care that it will not impose an excessive burden on local
government finances and specific companies,'' the officials said.
Aso announced June 10 what he described as an ''extremely ambitious'' target
for Japan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent from 2005 levels by
2020, which translates into an 8 percent cut from 1990 levels.
A 2020 target is seen as crucial for Japan and other countries because it is a
major focus of U.N. negotiations for a post-2012 carbon-capping framework that
are scheduled to conclude at a key U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen
in December.
==Kyodo