Japan must now part with its 'waiting for U.S. orders' stance on Kyoto Protocol -- Akahata editorial, July 25, 2001

The 6th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP6), which is now in session in Bonn, had a resumed session and agreed on core elements of rules in order to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S., which signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, recently changed its position to withdraw from the international treaty. The Kyoto Protocol has become almost a dead letter because Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro, without pointing out that the U.S. change of mind is wrong, avoided expressing Japan's willingness to ratify it and even took delaying tactics.

One step forward

The Japanese government was obliged to accept the draft agreement after major concessions made by the EU deprived Japan of justification for its opposition. This is of great international significance as the fruit of the persevering efforts the EU and many other countries made in negotiations out of desire to see the Kyoto Protocol come into effect.

Clearly, the international community seeking to prevent global warming will not tolerate the U.S. arrogance and the Japanese government's act of abandoning political morals as the COP3 chair in blindly following the U.S.

These events show that the international community has taken a first step toward the Kyoto Protocol coming into effect in 2002.

The problem is the Japanese government's attitude to try to gut the Kyoto Protocol.

The present agreement involves some serious setbacks, which we cannot overlook, such as the maximum assessment of forest absorption of carbon dioxide and delaying until after the Protocol comes into effect the decision on penalties for failures to achieve targets. These were proposed jointly by Japan, Canada, and some other countries.

Japan proposed including nuclear power plants developed countries construct in developing countries as greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects. This proposal was rejected by the international community, which was quite reasonable.

During the negotiation, Japan intently worked to undermine the Protocol. Its motivation was not to work positively to achieve targets of warming gas reduction but to get the biggest concessions, taking maximum advantage of the U.S. withdrawal. This move is based on calculations not to isolate the U.S.

Even after the Bonn agreement was reached, Prime Minister Koizumi said that the Japanese government has consistently insisted that doors must be open to U.S. participation, and that it will continue to persuade the U.S. U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell highly appreciated Japan's efforts.

It is no wonder that such a weak-kneed attitude of the Koizumi Cabinet has given rise to criticism of Japan for being unwilling to push on with environmental protection.

So Japan has lost its credibility in the world because of its action on the Kyoto Protocol. Japan can only recover the loss by declaring to the world that it will immediately ratify the Kyoto Protocol as the government that chaired the 1997 Kyoto COP3 which put forward the Kyoto Protocol.

The National Institute for Environmental Studies says that if the Kyoto Protocol is implemented by 2002 even without the U.S. participating, it will contribute to the prevention of global warming.

Ratify the Kyoto Protocol now

Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Yamasaki Taku has argued that it will be useless to put the Kyoto Protocol into force without the United States. But, to insist that a door must be kept open for the U.S. will deal a heavy blow to the protection of the global environment.

Now that the Bonn deal on rules for enforcing the Kyoto Protocol is in place, Japan should begin the efforts to contribute to the Kyoto Protocol's practical application, regardless of the U.S. stance.

The international community is beginning to make a big headway toward drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Not under any pretext should Japan delay implementing the Kyoto Protocol. (end)