Japan Press Weekly

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2007 October 10 - 16 [ENVIRONMENT]

Japan’s policy to deal with global warming is called into question

Following the U.N. High Level Event on Climate Change and the U.S.-led Major Emitters Conference, more international meetings to discuss the way to prevent global warming will take place this year, including an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting and the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP13).

It is a well-established fact that the emission of artificial greenhouse gases is causing the global warming that brings about abnormal climate and destruction of ecosystems.

Developed countries in 1997 signed the Kyoto Protocol that set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent from the 1990 level by 2012. They have only four years to achieve this goal.

The developed counties that account for only 20 percent of the world population emit 60 percent of greenhouse gases in the world. The U.S., the largest emitter, even refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

It has become a major goal to create a framework of restraining greenhouse gas emission effective from 2013 that developing countries, including China and India, will accept.

The EU already proposed a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. However, in defiance of world opinion, the U.S. is still reluctant to set a goal of total volume control.

As the second largest emitter after the U.S. among developed countries and the host nation of the Kyoto Conference, Japan is primarily responsible for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, but it has failed to reduce gas emissions. On the contrary, in 2005, Japan increased the amount of emissions by 7.8 percent from the 1990 level.

The government must make its utmost efforts to achieve the goal of cutting emissions by six percent as agreed in the Kyoto Protocol. To this end, it must stop entrusting emission reductions in the industrial sector, which accounts for 60 percent of Japan’s total emissions, to voluntary plans of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren). The government should take concrete measures to achieve the goal by concluding an agreement with the business world on emission reductions.

At the same time, the government is required to work with the U.S. and other developed countries to achieve reduction goals and play an active role in establishing a framework in which developing countries will take part.