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Japan eyes 25-pct reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030

Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Japan is considering lowering its emissions of greenhouse gasses by at least 25 percent by 2030 in line with global agreements to tackle climate change reached last year, officials said on Friday.

But while the proposed reduction is up from an earlier suggestion of 20 percent, the amount is still less than the targets eyed by other major developed countries, including the United States, which has pledged to cut its own emissions by as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

The European Union, meanwhile, has set a target of slashing its emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.

Japan initially tapered its emissions targets, due to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and the need to take its nuclear reactors offline and burn fossil fuels to produce power for the nation.

Japan is still the world's fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, but the disaster has made it difficult to definitively set a date by when it will reduce its emissions, although local media reports cite government officials as suggesting emissions will be cut by 25 percent, or slightly above, from 2013 or 2005 levels, by 2030.

The new target however would equate to just an 18-percent reduction when compared with the Kyoto Protocol base year of fiscal 1990.

The protocol is the international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and serves as a worldwide body for combating global warming.

The Kyoto Protocol, however, may be replaced at the next UNFCCC slated to be held in November and December in Paris, but prior to that Japan has said it will announce its carbon emissions target reductions and dates at the summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations planned for June in Germany.

Japan will present its plans for the future of its energy generation combinations for 2030 as early as this month, according to sources familiar with the matter, and the government is eyeing a 20-22 percent nuclear power production target, with renewable energy sources to comprise equivalent or slightly higher levels. Endi