Japan proposes cutting greenhouse gasses by half

The world should aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 as part of a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today.

Mr Abe, who plans to present his idea at the Group of Eight summit in Germany in June, said the proposed climate change treaty must be flexible enough to draw all nations’ participation.

“Global warming is an issue that should be addressed by the entire world,” Mr Abe said at a banquet in Tokyo. “It is indispensable to establish a new framework in which both industrialised and developing countries address this issue together.”

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in Japan in 1997, requires 35 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. Under the pact, Japan – home to the world’s second-largest economy – was required to make a 6 per cent cut.

Participation, however, has been limited. The United States refused to join, arguing it would cost millions of US jobs, and objecting that up-and-coming polluters such as China and India were not required to make cuts.

Abe argued that a successor to Kyoto, which expires in 2012, needed to be much broader to have an impact on climate change.

“We must create a new framework which moves beyond the Kyoto Protocol, in which the entire world will participate in emissions reduction,” he said.

The proposal also called for more aid to developing nations to boost energy efficiency, technological innovation to reduce emissions, development of renewable energy sources such as solar power, and expansion of nuclear power.

Before the speech, Japanese officials said the 50% reduction target was non-binding and was a general “vision” rather than an iron-clad goal.

Indeed, MR Abe’s proposal was short on specifics. It offered no base year from which emissions should be cut. His vow to create a special Japanese fund to help developing countries make cuts included no promises of specific amounts of money.