Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 13 - 19 [ENVIRONMENT]

Environmental NGOs criticize Japan’s new CO2 target

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo on November 15 approved a new target of greenhouse gas emissions which is far less ambitious than the current one, provoking fierce criticisms from environmental organizations.

In 2009, the then Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio of the Democratic Party of Japan pledged that Japan will reduce its GHG emissions by 25% by 2020 from the 1990 level. The government led by the Liberal Democratic Party has changed this target to a 3.8% reduction in 2020 from the 2005 level which is equivalent to a 3.1% increase from the 1990 level.

The government said that Japan will be unable to cut the amount of carbon dioxide emissions to its initial target because all nuclear reactors in the country stopped their operations after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis which led to an increase in the dependence on thermal power generation.

Based on the new target, the government will come up with a budget which aims at an investment of 110 billion dollars (11 trillion yen) in environmental technology by both public and private entities in the next five years and spending public money to boost the export of nuclear reactors. The government will present its new reduction target to the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP19) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change currently being held in Poland.

FoE Japan, an international environmental non-governmental organization, criticized the new target, saying, “It will discourage efforts by other countries and hamper negotiations from making progress.”

Kiko Network, another environmental NGO, said that even without nuclear power generation CO2 emissions can be decreased by the promotion of renewable energy sources and energy-saving technology.

The e-Shift, a citizen’s organization seeking for zero-nuke and new energy policies, called on the government to set a much more ambitious target by saying, “Global climate change will cause enormous damage in the near future.”

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On the same day, Climate Action Network, an umbrella organization of over 700 environmental groups in 90 countries, announced that Japan has won the “Special Fossil of the Day” for its new GHG emission target.

Past related article
> Japan should keep its pledge to world to cut 25% of its greenhouse gas emissions [October 3, 2013]