Japan needs to achieve two-fifths of emissions goal domestically: IEA

TOKYO, Oct. 9 Kyodo -
International Energy Agency Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said Friday that
Japan would need to achieve 10 percentage points of its emissions reduction
target of 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 through domestic efforts, not by
relying on forest absorption and the purchase of emission credits from
overseas.
Citing a special early excerpt of the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook to be
launched in November, Tanaka said for the world to contain the rise in global
average temperature at around 2 C from pre-industrial levels, Japan should play
its part by slashing its carbon dioxide emissions to 1 billion tons by 2020.
Japan's energy-related CO2 emissions stood at 1.2 billion tons in 2007.
Scientists point out that the increase in the world's average temperature as a
result of global warming since the Industrial Revolution should not exceed 2 C
to avoid a catastrophic impact from climate change.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged on the world stage that Tokyo will
seek to accomplish the 25 percent reduction goal, but he has not clarified how
much of the reduction will be achieved domestically.
The IEA chief also told a Tokyo news conference that the United States would be
required to domestically trim its CO2 emissions by 3 percent from 1990 levels
by 2020 and the European Union by 23 percent to prevent a global average
temperature rise above 2 C.
The estimates present tougher goals for the United States and European nations.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to bring emissions in the country back
to 1990 levels by 2020, while the European Union is aiming to slash its
emissions by 20 percent.
However, the 27-nation bloc is ready to raise the reduction target to 30
percent if other major economies including emerging countries present equally
ambitious goals.
Tanaka said the business as usual scenario, or no new initiatives to tackle
climate change, could over the long term result in a temperature rise of 6 C.
But he also said the global financial crisis that erupted last year ''gives us
a chance to make real progress toward a clean-energy future,'' as companies
refrained from investing in ''polluting technologies'' and CO2 emissions in
2009 could fall by as much as 3 percent -- the steepest decline in the last 40
years.
Tanaka, a former official at Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry,
urged the world to act urgently to tackle climate change, warning that every
year of delay ''adds an extra $500 billion to the investment needed between
2010 and 2030 in the energy sector.''
The executive director of the Paris-based organization said the world would
need 17 new nuclear power plants every year to contain the temperature rise at
around 2 C, and Japan would be required to construct one plant annually. At
present, only one or two new nuclear plants are built worldwide each year, he
said.
Tanaka said Japan would also have to raise the average capacity utilization of
its nuclear plants to 90 percent from the present level of around 70 percent.
''Japan has little room to depend on energy conservation to cut greenhouse gas
emissions compared with other countries,'' Tanaka said, emphasizing the need
for the country, which is already advanced in energy-saving technologies, to
utilize nuclear energy to reduce emissions.
The head of the group of 28 oil-consuming nations also said Japan lags behind
other countries in terms of the percentage of renewable energy in the primary
energy supply and thus has potential to increase power generation from such
energy sources as wind, solar and hydro power.
He also expressed doubt about the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's plan to
scrap gasoline surcharges, saying the fuel price in the country is already
relatively low compared with other advanced nations.
''Normally, Japan should be raising the tax to save gasoline'' and help curb
global warming, he said.
==Kyodo