Kambayashi/AP - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama speaks during his first press conference of the year.
Japan released its New Policy Agenda of Japan on Climate Change in English in mid-December. (Download the agenda here). According to their document, it both verified their proposed reductions of 25% and proposed new substantive reductions.
“. . . . Prime Minister Hatoyama stated that the new mid-term target to reduce emissions by 25% compared to 1990 levels was hinged on establishing “a fair and effective international framework in which all major economies participate,” but made no clarification whatsoever of his standards for “fairness.” In fact, perhaps equitability criteria have not yet been defined even within the government. . . .
“The new mid-term target, or “30% reductions below 2005 levels” represents the most stringent of the four options discussed in the Mid-Term Target Review Committee under the former administration. It had once been dismissed because it would have too large an impact on the economy and the policy tools and scale that it called for were unrealistic.”
The U.S. is only proposing a 17% reduction in emissions based on 2005 levels, which is about a 4% reduction based on 1990 levels. It must be tough for the U.S. government to be “bettered” in this way by countries as small but ambitious as Japan. Can’t the U.S. do more? We need to at least try. More ideas from the Japanese agenda:
Actually the number of 17% of the U.S. is with respect to 2005.
Vision for a Developed-Developing Country Cooperation Model: For International Contribution by Industry to Climate change Solutions
(1) Industry should also consider ways to “bridge” developed and developing countries. Contributions should be centered on substantively reducing GHG emissions through energy and environmental technology transfer and international intersectoral cooperation and agreement and supplying products that will contribute to creating a global low-carbon consumption society in terms of LCA (life cycle assessment).
(2) Japan, the US and China should launch a model project of developed-developing country cooperation based on public-private partnership in areas including energy conservation, renewable energies and nuclear energy. Reductions generated in the project should be trilaterally accredited among the three countries as offset credits that could be used for the purpose of staying in compliance with domestic schemes.
(3) Furthermore, industry could also look into setting up a new organization provisionally called the Institution for Engineering
Solutions for Climate change, which would be based on public-private partnership to promote the projects described above, to implement the Voluntary Action Plan in wider international dimensions and to collect benchmarking data.
They make a good point below about individuals versus countries (which is also an idea I like since Copenhagen collapsed into political fighting Individuals and their cities and states will make up a huge part of fighting climate change, but how much is possible is yet unknown).
However, in order to employ equalized emissions per capita as an equitability standard, fundamental rules under the Kyoto Protocol regime must be altered. Negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol and the post-Kyoto framework are based on the idea that GHGs emissions should be counted by country of origin. However, with GHGs being generated as a result of the fossil fuel consumption accompanying human economic and daily life activities, the focus should be on “fossil-fuel consumption of individuals of a country” rather than on “country-specific emissions” in order for individuals around the world to bear a fair share of burden. In order to employ equalized emissions per capita as a criterion for equitability, emissions would be required to be counted according to how much GHG was indirectly emitted at the consumption level in the country where a product or service was consumed, instead of how much was emitted in the country of origin.
In reality, however, it is technically difficult to get hold of precise data on consumption-level emissions.
Also, they are planning on increasing nuclear facilities, building one new one per year.
The premises for Japan to achieve 10% reductions below 1990 levels are: boosting the operation rate of nuclear plants from 70% to 92%, or the OECD standard, constructing one new nuclear power plant and 270 wind power turbines every year, and raising the diffusion rate of next-generation vehicles to 50%.
It concludes with:
However, the stalemate of intergovernmental negotiations on contributing to climate change mitigation measures does not mean that industry can get away with sitting back with hands folded. Japanese industry, in particular, must take the initiative in supplying the world with environmental technology as well as products and facilities that can reduce CO2 in the manufacturing process or at the consumption level.
It is important for industry to proactively become involved in the developing country assistance measures currently discussed in the government and expand the coverage of the Voluntary Action Plan adopted in 1997 to include CO2 reductions through international contribution. It is also expected that in the process of such discussions, the establishment of a new institution for extending technological and financial contributions to the world through public-private partnership will also rise on the agenda.
The Copenhagen climate summit didn’t deliver on making any of the points legally binding. The agenda is from November, before the Copenhagen conference, and it was released in English in mid-December 2009.
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