Big emitters should join a new, post-Kyoto pact

What kind of greenhouse gas emissions rules should be made after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012?

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened in South Africa on Monday.

The Kyoto Protocol is a set of international rules that is riddled with defects, as it obliges only advanced nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Japanese government needs to maintain its stance of opposing extension of the protocol.

Emerging nations such as China and India are in the vanguard of those arguing for extension of the pact. For such countries, the Kyoto Protocol is quite convenient since it does not oblige them to cut emissions.

However, China, a country with remarkable economic growth, is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. India is the third-largest emitter.

The second-largest emitting country is the United States, an advanced country that withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol over worries about potential adverse effects on its economy. The biggest problem with the Kyoto Protocol is that the world’s top three emitting countries are not included in it.

Meanwhile, Japan and the European Union, which are both obliged to cut emissions, account for only 27 percent of the world’s total. It is crystal clear that the Kyoto Protocol’s measures to fight global warming lack teeth.

To cut global emissions as a whole, it is indispensable to create a new framework to include all the major emitting nations including China and the United States.

However, it appears that the adoption of new rules at COP17 will be quite difficult. There is no prospect of the United States or China agreeing to such rules. In addition, participating nations now place fixing their own economies as their top priority due to factors such as the European fiscal crisis. They are even more reluctant than before to reduce greenhouse gases because such action could restrict the production activities of their industries.

Japan argues the creation of the new international framework should be delayed until 2015 or later. The period after 2012 and until the new framework is put into force will be a “transition period” for each country to make voluntary reductions.

This is a very realistic proposal. Japan must strongly pursue the cooperation of other countries during discussions on the matter hereafter to increase the number of parties supporting the proposal.

Because of the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government has been reviewing its energy policy. For some time, Japan will remain in a state of heightened dependency on thermal power generation.

Under such circumstances, it is quite natural for Japan to retract the target of “reducing emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by the end of 2020,” which then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama abruptly announced in September 2009. The target took into account such factors as an increase in the number of nuclear power reactors.

The target also had some preconditions, including “creation of a fair framework with the participation of all major emitting nations.” Even so, the “25 percent reduction target” could take on a life of its own under current conditions.

It is important for Japan to propose a new target that can be realized during the transition period.

(The Yomiuri Shimbun)

(Asia News Network)