UN climate chief: Rich nations short on CO2 goals

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BONN, Germany (AP) — Japan unveiled a new target Wednesday for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2020, but the plan was slammed by environmentalists and the U.N. climate chief as leaving the industrial world dangerously short of its pollution goals.

Prime Minister Taro Aso said in Tokyo the plan was ambitious and in line with efforts by the United States and Europe to trim carbon emissions over the next decade. He said Japan calculated its target on a 2005 base year — but environmentalists said that move was designed to deliberately mask the real effect of the Japanese cut.

“We all must make a commitment to tackle the problem of global warming,” Aso said.

Environmentalists attending U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn said the reduction amounted only to 8 or 9 percent cut compared with the more widely accepted base line of 1990.

Japan already has committed to reduce its emissions by 6 percent by 2012 under the 12-year-old Kyoto Protocol. Activists said the pledge to cut emissions a further two percent over the next eight years “lacked ambition” and could lead to a retreat by other countries.

Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change, said emission reduction plans submitted so far leave industrial countries “a long long way from the ambitious reduction scenarios” that scientists say are needed. He appeared taken aback by the limited scope of the Japanese announcement.

“For the first time in 2-1/2 years in this job, I don’t know what to say,” he said.

When pressed, De Boer said pledges by industrial countries fell far short of the 25 to 40 percent reductions in emissions by 2020 that U.N. scientists say is required to prevent potentially disastrous effects of climate change. Those effects could include a rise in sea levels that will threaten coastal areas, more extreme weather, the extinction of many plant and animal species and the spread of human diseases.

De Boer said the scientists’ range provides “a beacon for what industrial countries need to do.”

De Boer said Japan’s targets referred only to domestic actions, and he hoped Tokyo will factor in more measures later to further reduce Japan’s carbon footprint. Those could include better farming and forestry practices to absorb carbon from the air and buying credits by helping poor countries reduce emissions and deforestation.

Activists accused Japan of “playing a numbers game” by using 2005 as its base line.

“(Japan is) hiding its lack of ambition behind a smoke screen,” said Kim Carstensen, the climate change director for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

Kimiko Hirata, of the environmental group Kiko Network, said 2007 was a record year for greenhouse gas emissions in Japan, and its emissions now stand 7 percent higher than in 1990.

The new target “will seriously harm the negotiations” for a new climate change deal, she said, predicting that Japan’s limited commitment could affect the pledges of other industrial countries.

Carstensen said latest calculations indicate the industrial world will reduce emissions only by 5 to 12 percent from 1990 levels.

Japan was the latest of several industrial countries to announce emissions targets that have disappointed negotiators from developing countries.

The United States has not made a formal pledge at the U.N. talks, but the U.S. Congress is working on legislation calling for a 17 percent cut by 2020. It also uses 2005 as its base year.

The Kyoto Protocol required 37 countries to reduce emissions by a total 5 percent by 2012. Negotiators from 192 countries hope to complete a successor to Kyoto at a meeting in December in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

The U.S. rejected the Kyoto Pact and the federal government made no effort during the Bush administration to cut carbon emissions.

“The picture is not yet complete,” De Boer told reporters about goals for the new treaty.

Posted on June 12, 2009 · in Asia

Tagged as: emissons reductions • greenhouse gas • japan carbon