By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Nov 12 2000 (IPS)

Japan is headed for this week’s talks on global warming with few proposals to reduce its greenhouse gas production, and little genuine initiatives for progress on the issue, say critics.

They add that the record of Japan — host of United Nations negotiations on the climate change convention in 1997 — is nothing to be proud of.

Japan remains far from the target it agreed to then to reduce its production of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming, by 6 percent of the 1990 level.

Government reports indicate that greenhouse emissions in Japan have to be reduced 11 percent from the current 13 million tonnes emitted per year to meet 1990 levels.

Ahead of the sixth conference of parties to the climate change convention in The Hague, Japan is also saying that its managed forests can play a role in reducing 3.7 percent of its greenhouse gases because they help absorb harmful emissions from the combustion of oil and gas.

Industry accounts for 75 percent of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, produced by Japan. The bulk of greenhouse gas production comes from vehicle emissions and the use of oil and gas for electricity, among others.

But “relying on forest plantations to store carbon pollution from the atmosphere and combat climate change could accelerate the destruction of old-growth native forest,” warns a joint report compiled by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Greenpeace.

WWF added in a statement that while Japan counts commercial forestry as a carbon-dioxide reducer, it is not counting carbon release when forests are cut down for timber.

Its joint report with Greenpeace also called for the exclusion from the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change, of the clause that promotes such carbon sequestration projects.

“Japan wants no environmental standards or common definitions of what a forest is. Japan wants to count everything green that grows — from national parks to urban trees and bushes along the roads,” according to the WWF statement.

Likewise, much to the horror of environmentalists, Japan is banking on a proposal that supports a scheme that would allow emissions trading with developing countries.

This, green activists say, is a way to evade real reductions on greenhouse gases within industrialised countries.

Tokyo supports proposals at this week’s conference for industrial countries to give financial and technical support to developing nations for tackling global warming — and then earn “credits” that can be used to ‘trade’ emissions and try to meet their own reduction targets.

“The key to ensuring the success of the upcoming meeting in The Hague, is support for developing countries,” Environment Agency director general Yoriko Kawaguchi said at a press conference last week, explaining Tokyo’s support for the scheme.

Kawaguchi explained that Japan is poised to propose a new mechanism for providing technical support to developing countries by developed countries.

Likewise, Japan, the world’s top donor, says it intends to increase its aid contributions for environment protection — with emissions trading involved. At present, Japanese figures say Tokyo spends roughly 25 percent of aid funds for environmental projects.

Kawaguchi says technical support should pave the way for developing nations — which say the burden for cutting back on greenhouses gases lie with the industrialised countries that produce most of them — to accept reduction targets.

But Japan itself is having a hard time meeting its Kyoto targets, and big business is opposed to any move by the government to put conditions on companies in order to meet national reduction targets.

Hajime Ohta, executive counsellor of the Japan Federation of Economic Organisations (Keidanren), Japan’s largest business association, argues that it is difficult for Japan to cut emissions below 1990 levels because of the threat to its industries.

As it is, he says the forecast for energy demand is growing in the consumer and transportation sectors. Instead, he urges the government to pursue efficiency using the global objective of reducing greenhouses gases where the cost is lowest.

Likewise, the Keidanren, with its close relations to politicians, opposes a transport tax even though it urges the automobile industry to promote more environment-friendly vehicles.

The association also recommends forest absorption as a way of reducing greenhouse gases because “there is no denying that deforestation has led to a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”, Ohta says.

But while the government continues with foot-dragging and big business opposes tougher means of greenhouse gas reduction, global warming is already seeing negative effects in Japan.

Temperatures in Japan have risen by 1.2 degrees Centigrade overall, when compared to records monitored a century ago, reports Koji Murayama of the Japan Weather Association.

“Japan’s winters are growing warmer. For example, we continue to record temperatures over 25 degrees Centigrade even in November — a clear sign of global warming,” he explains.

Japan is also recording more rainfall and a different trend in rainfall patterns, such as heavy rainfall in some regions and no rain at all in other areas, he says.

As a result, flash floods, sometimes resulting in people being swept away in swollen rives, are occurring more frequently.

Murayama adds that Japan’s changing temperature is also bringing with it the entry of a host of new bugs that usually thrive in subtropical climates. Some of these insects are now nesting in some areas in southern Japan because of hotter temperatures, he explains.

Japan is also reported to have lost between 20 to 30 percent of its coast, as a result of higher temperatures.

Murayama says that the Japanese government has been notified of these changes and the potential economic problems they bring, such as disrupting agriculture and fishing patterns.

Warns Murayama: “The government is not doing anything to arrest global warming. It just might be too late.”

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