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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

In Bangkok: Eyes on Japan's Plans for 2020 As It Grapples With Impacts of Earthquake, Tsunami

by Eric J. Lyman

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 Participants in the latest round of U.N. climate change negotiations, under way in Bangkok, say they are eager to know if Japan’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will change in the wake of the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex.

On Monday, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Director Christiana Figueres said she hoped that, despite the crisis, Japan would not back away from its pledge to lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. A day later, participants in the Bangkok meetings echoed Figueres’ remarks. One member of the Japanese delegation said it is too soon to tell what impact the events of the last month will have.

According to WWF-Japan, the loss of power from the Fukushima plant has decreased levels of available energy, but the problem has been eased by a reduction in industrial output since March 11, voluntary conservation by Japanese citizens, and rolling blackouts in parts of the country. Nine new nuclear plants had been scheduled to come online in Japan by 2020, but that is now considered unlikely.

"We believe that Japan’s 2012 target from the first compliance period [under the Kyoto Protocol] is still achievable, and that there will probably be a reconsideration of the 2020 target at some point," Masako Konishi, climate change project leader with WWF-Japan, told BNA in a telephone interview. "That said, we still think the 2020 target can be met. The last weeks have shown that the people around Tokyo can consume less energy, and if renewables are further developed, we think the 25 percent reduction target can still be met."

Kuni Shimada, a veteran Japanese climate change delegate and the principal international policy coordinator for Japan’s Global Environment Bureau, told BNA that Japan's emissions reduction commitments for 2020 will be reviewed over the coming weeks and months.

"Nobody in Japan today can know what will happen," Shimada said. "There needs to be an assessment after the extent of the damage is known and only then can we determine whether the future targets remain feasible."

Japan’s 2020 targets were set in 2009 by then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. But the government of current Prime Minister Naoto Kan caused a stir at December’s climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico, when Japanese delegates there said Japan would refuse to take on binding post-2012 emissions reduction commitments unless other large emitters like the United States and China did the same--casting the fate of the 2020 targets in doubt. Japan later softened its stance, though the March 11 destruction again makes Japan’s plans unclear.

The Bangkok meetings, which got under way Sunday, will conclude Friday.
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