Japan: ”Our cuts are genuine”
In the midst of verbal bombardments from the vast majority of other countries over its new modest carbon reduction commitment, the world’s fifth largest emitter holds its stand. First of all, Japan’s reductions are real, not a result of carbon credit trading, Prime Minister Taro Aso notes.
”Mamizu” is a phrase Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso aims to teach the world:
”The target we are using is for ”genuine clear water” or ”mamizu” as we say in Japanese – truly a genuine net effect of our effort to save and conserve energy. Unlike the European Union, we do not include emissions trading,” Mr. Aso says, according to the Financial Times.
Compared to the baseline year of the Kyoto Protocol, 1990, the Japanese commitment is for an eight percent reduction by 2020. This is just two percent more than the country had already committed to, and much less than the 20 percent reduction that the EU has promised for 2020. This has spurred a cascade of attacks from most other leading players in the UN climate talks. Still, Taro Aso remains unimpressed by the pressure, using 2005 as an alternative baseline year to prove his point:
”We are talking about the future. And in that context we believe that we should choose a base year that is very close to the present. We believe our figure is greater than the European Union’s 13 percent and the US 14 percent reduction vis-á-vis 2005.”
Japan, still the world’s fifth largest carbon emitter, has managed to reduce its emissions relative to growth. Thus, it will cost Japan more than other countries to achieve emission reductions, Mr. Aso argues:
”On this marginal abatement cost, I would also like to ask the EU to further their efforts so that they could get close to what we have targeted.”
Japan’s plans include raising renewable energy – primarily solar and hydropower – to 20 percent and improve energy efficiency of household appliances.
No comments:
Post a Comment