Long-term emissions goal eyed

Japan, aiming to lead climate change negotiations ahead of the Group of Eight summit in July, looks set to announce plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050 from the current level, sources said.

Officials are still discussing specific figures. The government plans to announce the goal in June as part of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's strategy to combat global warming, the sources said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said the strategy, dubbed Fukuda Vision, will be based on recommendations by a government panel on the climate change issue, due out in June.

"Japan has yet to make clear what to do with its own emissions in 2050," Machimura said in a speech in Sapporo on Saturday.

The issue of climate change will be high on the agenda at the G-8 summit in Hokkaido's Lake Toyako resort, to be chaired by Fukuda.

The European Union has promised to cut emissions from its member nations by 20 percent by 2020 from the 1990 level.

In April, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a goal to halt the growth of U.S. emissions by 2025.

Japan has yet to set any target, either midterm or long-term, to curb its own emissions.

In May 2007, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for halving global emissions by 2050 as part of his Cool Earth 50 strategy.

Fukuda, who took over Abe's goal, presented two additional policies at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

He said Japan will take the initiative so that new national emissions reduction targets will be set under the framework that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol and that Japan will set its own midterm goal.

But the midterm goal is not expected to be ready by the G-8 summit because the government plans to tally potential reduction volumes in various sectors, such as industry and households, to arrive at the national target.

To halve global emissions by 2050, industrialized economies will be required to reduce their greenhouse gas output by larger margins than developing countries.

The EU said it aims to cut its emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050 from the 1990 level.

The government has concluded that Japan's own long-term goal will have to specify a similar percentage, the sources said.

It plans to finalize the long-term goal, also taking into account a report from the National Institute for Environment Studies that it will be possible for Japan to cut its emissions by 70 percent in 2050 from the 1990 level.

Japan's long-term goal is not expected to be legally binding, the sources said.

A long-term goal, unlike a midterm goal, will not have to be specified in law, a senior government official said.

Still, the long-term goal, once it is set, will likely give momentum to the introduction of new measures, such as domestic carbon trading, and the development of innovative technologies.(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)