Post - Articles
Japan to maintain its green commitments despite post-Fukushima uncertainty
- 12 years ago (2011-07-23)
- Junior Isles
Japanese Environment Minister Satsuki Eda has vowed to maintain Japan’'s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, despite uncertainty hanging over Japan’'s power generation future in the aftermath of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Hydrogen Americas Summit
The pledge, made in 2009 by then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, had been called into question since it was based on the building of more nuclear reactors and increasing the utilisation rate of existing ones, neither of which now seems likely for Japan.
The devastation from the March earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear crisis “certainly doesn't mean we can destroy the global environment," Eda said in an interview, "Japan’'s international responsibility hasn’'t changed."
He further acknowledged that, “There are growing calls among the people for reviewing the country’'s energy policy in favour of renewable energy.”
A recent Kyodo survey showed that the Japanese public now overwhelmingly support renewable energy, such as solar power and wind, as the energy source the country should focus on. Nuclear power was among the least favoured.
On the future of the Kyoto Protocol, Eda stuck to the country’'s opposition to forming new obligations under the existing framework by setting a so-called “second commitment period".
The 1997 protocol obliges nearly 40 developed countries to reduce their emissions over a five-year period through the end of 2012 by an average of 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels.
Japan opposes setting the second commitment period on the grounds that it would perpetuate a framework that does not include China and the United States, the world’'s top two carbon dioxide emitters. The US has never ratified the protocol.