ENVIRONMENT-JAPAN: Not Warm Enough on Global Warming?

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 12 1998 (IPS) - Japan may be a signatory to a global pact to curb global warming, but an international environmental group says Tokyo has to show a clearer commitment regarding the needed decrease in greenhouse gases.

Greenpeace says while the government has offered new laws aimed at cutting Japan’s levels of gas emissions that contribute to global warming, some of its recent actions and pronouncements seem to point to support for the opposite.

“The Japanese government looks at the issue of reducing (carbon dioxide) CO2 emissions on the assumption that energy needs will grow in the country,” Hideaki Takemura of Greenpeace Japan also observes.

“Therefore,” he adds, “whatever steps it has taken toward a reduction is based on an increase in CO2 emissions. We want the government to decide that there will not be an increase and then come up with proposals towards a further reduction.”

Indeed, despite new laws and regulations developed in a bid to lower greenhouse gas levels, Japanese officials estimate a combined emission increase of 8.8 percent from industries by 2010.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has said chemical, paper and pulp, and cement industries expect their emissions to grow by more than 10 percent. The power generating industry, meanwhile, estimates a surge of some 20 percent.

Takemura is critical of Tokyo’s stance of accepting an increase in energy needs because he says this will encourage emission trading as a major method of CO2 reduction proposals.

Already, the Environment Agency has announced that a panel it had commissioned to look into reducing global warming had recommended an “emission trading plan”. Under this scheme, countries with emissions under the target amount can sell their emission rights to another country.

The Agency also said joint implementation activities between developed and developing countries as a way to share reduction credits would be suggested in the November meeting of industrialised and developing nations on global warming.

In addition, a “clean development mechanism to help developing countries tackle emission reduction will be proposed at the meeting, which will be held in Buenos Aires, said the Agency.

A preparatory meeting to the November conference is ongoing in Bonn.

Notes Kalee Kraider, also of Greenpeace: “Global warming is a problem created by the industrialised nations of the world, particularly the United States. But in Bonn, there does not seem to be a definite commitment coming out from the biggest emitters.”

According to Greenpeace, the United States accounted for 36.5 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions in 1990, while Japan accounted for 8.5 percent and Germany 7.4 percent.

Just last April, Japan became the 14th country to sign an international pact to curb global warming at the UN Headquarters in New York. All signatories of the pact are supposed to adopt measures decided upon by some 160 countries at a meeting in Kyoto in December 1997.

The protocol obliges industrial nations to reduce the aggregate manmade emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent from the 1990 level between 2008 and 2012. Japan’s target is six percent.

A new environmental protection law that will require industries to report on the pollutants they release into the atmosphere, water and soil, is touted by Tokyo as an example of the domestic aspect of Japan’s commitment to Kyoto targets.

MITI also points out the development of new energy efficient technology in the Japanese automobile industry, as a major step towards meeting carbon dioxide reduction. There is also a new regulation that calls for boosting subsidies to private firms for developing efficient energy use.

In addition, major Japanese industry groups have taken the initiative of setting their own goals to help achieve the country’s emission target. According to MITI, steel and auto industries seek to cut emissions by 10.5 percent and 10.8 percent respectively, according to MITI.

Japan has agreed to pool efforts with the European Union in convincing the United States to sign the Kyoto protocol.

But Takemura remains unsure of Japan’s sincerity in signing the pact, and says the Environmental Agency’s recent statements are ominous signs. He hints that Japan’s sudden interest in helping Russia in meeting greenhouse gas emission goals may have something to do with the Agency’s emission trading plan.

During Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s visit to Japan last April, the two countries had drawn up a partnership toward achieving greenhouse gas emission goals.

Japan will have a joint implementation programme with Russia to modernise the latter’s power plants, power-transmission lines and oil refineries. Japan has undertaken a 2.2 billion-yen (16 million dollars) study programme on energy sources as well.

Environmentalists, however, point out that Russia’s gas emissions actually dropped 31 percent below 1990 levels in 1994 as a result of its economic slump.

Takemura is also worried about the government’s push for more nuclear plants as a way of meeting Japan’s increasing energy demand. MITI contends that the construction of 20 new nuclear plants will cut a total of 27 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Green activists say sincere commitments to curb global warming has become all the more crucial now that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected a sea level rise of up to 86 cm over the next century if greenhouse gas levels double in the atmosphere, and by 1.5 metres over the following centuries.

In a Greenpeace report released last week, scientists point to some parts of the world warming three to five times the global average rate as a result of human activities.

The report, compiled after years of survey, says North American glaciers are warming following rapid increases in regional temperature and are likely to have a huge impact on global sea level rise, as well as on the Arctic region’s indigenous people and wildlife.

Computer analyses based on the group’s survey suggest a one metre rise in sea level would lead to the inundation of key agricultural and population regions of Asia including Yangtze River delta in China, much of Mekong River delta in Vietnam and Cambodia and large areas of Bangladesh.