Posted on June, 09 2008

Bonn, Germany: The Japanese Prime Minister’s vision for climate change policy, announced today in Tokyo, falls short on ambition and will not help to protect the world from dangerous climate change, WWF said today.

“The G8 Leaders need to make concrete steps forward to a low carbon world, and Japan’s Prime Minister Fukuda needs to push hard to trigger that leadership,” said Kathrin Gutmann, WWF Climate Policy Coordinator,. “In this light, Fukuda presents only a blurred vision and the lack of a 2020 target for emissions reductions is utterly disappointing.”

Although Japan’s long-term target of 60-80% emissions reductions by 2050 may sound like a step forward, the Prime Minister postponed announcing a medium target next year. This, however, would be a critical milestone for re-directing investment into clean energy sources.

Instead of setting the mid term target, Japan suggests changing the base year from 1990 to 2005. This would be equivalent to a 4% reduction of Japanese emissions by 2020 only, compared to 1990. The EU has proposed a 30% reduction compared to 1990 if others match the effort.

“The Japanese Prime Minister is playing a numbers game to avoid a commitment to deep emission reductions”, says Kathrin Gutmann. “Fukuda willl have to announce a clear mid-term target soon. “

According to science, industrialized nations have to cut emissions by 25-40% by 2020 to keep global warming below the danger-threshold of 2°C. All Kyoto Protocol Parties – including Japan – agreed to this indicative reduction range at the UN conference in Bali last December.

“Japan wants to let the slowest movers determine the pace, but this is not how you accelerate change,” said Naoyuki Yamagishi, Head of the Climate Change Programme at WWF Japan. “Rather than support innovative business and protect people and nature, Fukuda is deferring to pressure from Japan’s dirtiest industries.”

Fukuda also failed to confirm the implementation of a domestic emissions trading system in Japan, making it difficult for Japan’s financial industry to support the move to a low carbon society. Emissions trading makes it more cost efficient to clean up polluting technologies but, according to WWF, conservative industry circles have once again managed to block progress.

For more information:
Kim Carstensen, Director WWF Global Climate Initiative, +45-40-343635, k.carstensen@wwf.dk
Kathrin Gutmann, Climate Policy Coordinator, WWF International, +49 162 29 144 28, kathirn.gutmann@wwf.de
Naoyuki Yamagishi, Head Climate Programme WWF Japan, +81-90-6471-1432, yamagishi@wwf.or.jp
Masako Konishi, Senior Climate policy advisor, WWF Japan, konishi@wwf.or.jp, Tel no at UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany is +49 15 7759 55 762.
Martin Hiller, Communications Manager WWF International, +41-79-347-2256, mhiller@wwfint.org