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FT Japan commits to greenhouse gas target

By Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: September 7 2009 12:39 Last updated: September 7 2009 12:39
Yukio Hatoyama, Japan’s incoming prime minister, has vowed to stick by his Democratic party's manifesto goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and has promised to draw up a “Hatoyama Initiative” laying out how rich nations should support the developing countries build low-carbon economies.
In an election manifesto issued before the DPJ toppled the long-ruling Liberal Democratic party in last month's historic general election, the decade-old opposition said it would aim to cut emissions of the gases blamed for global warming by 25 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.
The goal is much more ambitious than the interim target of an 8 per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels announced in June by Taro Aso, Japan’s LDP prime minister.
It is also opposed by Japanese business groups, which say the oil-import-dependent nation is already highly energy efficient and that further emission reduction gains will be hard to come by and could further undermine an economy already suffering chronic low growth.
However, in a speech to an environmental forum in Tokyo on Monday, Mr Hatoyama, who is expected to become prime minister on September 16, made clear that the new ruling party would stick by its ambitious target.
“It is one of our pledges stipulated in our manifesto so we need the political will to aim at its realization by utilising all policy tools,” the Kyodo news agency quoted Mr Hatoyama as saying.
The incoming prime minister stressed that the goal would be contingent on other nations making strong commitments to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
He said industrialised nations would offer “financial and technological support” to developing countries and that as soon as he took office he would “begin studying” concrete steps to be brought together as the Hatoyama Initiative for international co-operation on the issues.
The DPJ, which has given little detail of how it will curb greenhouse gas emissions, is also likely to face substantial practical and political obstacles in putting policies in place to meet its carbon-cutting goal.
The Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, has called on the country’s new ruling Democratic party to hold “scientific discussions and national debate” before attempting to pursue the 25 per cent target.
Fujio Mitarai, Keidanren chairman, said recently that efforts to address global warming required international co-operation and should be considered from perspectives of “fairness and the appropriateness of the burden” on the public.
“We would like a scientific discussion and a national debate on the likely effect on employment and the overall economy of the DPJ's specific measures for reductions,” Mr Mitarai said.
Pressure from the Keidanren and other business lobbies was one factor in Mr Aso’s decision to set the national target at an 8 per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels – a level denounced by anti-global warming campaigners as inadequate."