… and the ‘Fossil of the Day’ goes to Japan

Japan has won the ‘Fossil of the Day Award” for its unambitious medium-term emissions target.

The fossil is presented by NGOs to the country which does the most to disrupt and obstruct progress at United Nations climate change talks. This time the award took the form of a bento box — a Japanese lunch box — filled with coal.

Prime Minister Taro Aso on Wednesday announced an emissions cut target of 15% below 2005 levels by 2020.

The announcement, relayed to negotiators here in Bonn where talks are under way to find a post 2012-framework for climate change mitigation, was met with deafening silence.

Many developing countries had hoped that one of the major economies would step up to the plate and propose an ‘ambitious target” in the order of that suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Japan’s proposed 15% cut translates into an 8% cut below 1990 levels. Worse still, this is only 2% lower than Japan’s current target, which it has failed to meet in the years since signing the Kyoto Protocol.

The IPCC, which makes recommendations to policymakers based on a review of scientific literature, has called for at least a 25% to 40% emission cut by 2020 to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Speaking at the talks in Bonn on Wednesday, Kim Carstensen, head of WWF International, said Aso’s decision would be a ‘devastating obstruction to progress in global climate talks”.

He said Japan was trying to hide behind a smokescreen to conceal the truth that it has no ambition to reduce its emissions or influence the global negotiations in a positive way.

Japan previously tried to block references to the IPCC’s 25% to 40% benchmark range and has also delayed the announcement of its 2020 targets.

Although a recent survey found that 63% of Japanese favoured emissions cuts of more than 25%, Aso claimed deeper cuts would put a great burden on the Japanese people.

NGOs had hoped one of the major economies would put forward an ambitious emissions target for 2020. But it seems the major emitters — the United States, the European Union and now Japan — are playing hardball.

While Japan’s proposal is certainly shocking, it is in line with the standpoint taken by the US and EU. The US has agreed to a 14% cut in emissions below 2005 levels and the EU on a 13% cut.

Kimiko Hirata of the Kiko Network, a Japanese NGO which focuses on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, mocked Aso’s suggestion that this was an ambitious target.

Hirata said it had become clear that Prime Minister Aso ‘cannot be a hero”, adding that the announcement would do serious harm to the negotiations. She said the targets were ‘irresponsible to the people in developing countries and to future generations”.

‘Japan is not [a leader]. Japan is a laggard,” Carstensen said. ‘The worry for international negotiations is that this will help move the ambition level downwards, exactly the opposite of what we need.”

He said there was nothing in the announcement that would inspire the EU, US or Australia to move their emission cuts target upwards. The EU had earlier made a commitment to raise its targets if other major countries did the same.

Carstensen said cuts on the level proposed by Japan would commit the world to a ‘three-degree future” which would be ‘unbearable for the world” and especially for the world’s poor. ‘I truly hope that this can be reversed because it needs reversal,” he said.

Ziaul Haque Mukta, a member of Oxfam Bangladesh, said Japan needed more radical emissions reduction, in the order of 56% below 1990 levels.

Harald Winkler, an energy expert and member of the South African delegation, said Wednesday’s announcement shows that developed and developing countries are ”far apart in numerical terms”.

He said the developed countries failure to commit to strong targets would affect the developing world’s liability to follow suit. ”Ultimately the planet suffers,” said Winkler.

When asked what he thought of the announcement, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said — after a long pause — ‘I think for the first time in two-and-a-half years on this job, I don’t know what to say.”

When pushed for a response De Boer said the targets were an ‘incomplete picture” as they did not take into account other actions Japan could use to account for emissions, such as carbon trading or using carbon sinks.

De Boer also pointed out that Japan has one of the most efficient economies in the world and implied that the country may want a show of comparable effort from developing countries before doing more.

‘If industrial countries feel everyone is pulling their weight, it will make it easier for everyone to show greater ambition.”