COP 16 reveals Japan’s isolation

Japan Press Weekly

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COP 16 reveals Japan’s isolation

The purpose of the 16^th United Nations International Climate Change Conference (COP16), which convened in Cancun, Mexico from November 29 to December 10 was to prepare the basis for a new international agreement to counter global warming after 2013 at the COP 17 to be held in South Africa at the end of 2011.

The first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol is from 2008 to 2012. However, Japan, the host nation of the COP 3 at which the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, expressed at the beginning of the COP16 opposition to setting the second commitment period under any conditions. This has caused more confusion in the difficult negotiations than anything else.

No other country in the COP16 so strongly objected to setting the second commitment period, which made clear Japan’s isolation in opposing the international undertaking.

The Japanese government argued that the emission of greenhouse gases by major developed countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol accounts for only 27 percent of the world’s emissions, and that a single framework in which all major emitters participate should be established. Some people in Japan think that this argument is tenable.

However, there is no realistic possibility that a single framework in which all major emitters take part promptly can come into being.

Against this background, if the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is obstructed from being set, since it is the only existing international treaty with legal binding power, neither an international agreement to counter global warming nor a single framework with all major emitters as participants will be realistic.

Thus, Japan is seriously responsible for obstructionism by insisting on not extending the Kyoto Protocol.

-Akahata, December 12, 2010