Japan Struggling To
Meet CO2 Emissions Target
October 24, 2005 — By Hiroko Tabuchi, Associated Press
TOKYO — Japan's greenhouse gas
emissions fell slightly last fiscal year, but the country is far from
achieving its target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, a government
report said Friday.
Japan released about 1.329 billion tons of greenhouse gases in the year
ending March 31, down 0.8 percent from the previous year, according to
the Environment Ministry.
The report came after a nationwide campaign this summer that had many of
Japan's public servants and businessmen shedding their customary suits
and ties in a concerted effort to cut down on air conditioner use.
But Japan must speed up reductions if it intends to meet targets set in
the Kyoto Protocol, which went into effect in February this year.
Under the U.N.-brokered agreement, Tokyo is committed to cutting
collective emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases
to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Climate scientists say these gases trap heat from solar radiation that
bounces off the Earth's surface, keeping it within the atmosphere and
gradually boosting the planet's temperature. The effect is similar to
how a greenhouse retains the sun's heat.
The report attributed the small decrease in Japan's emissions to a
recovery in operation rates at its nuclear power plants, which provide
about a third of the resource-poor country's energy.
Although the Japanese government has been aggressively pushing nuclear
power as an alternative source of energy, many of the country's reactors
have been running at under capacity after a series of safety violations,
reactor malfunctions and accidents.
Public confidence in nuclear energy was badly shaken after an accident
at a reprocessing plant outside Tokyo in 1999, which killed two workers
and exposed hundreds of people to radioactivity.
Then in August 2004, a corroded pipe carrying boiling water and
superheated steam burst at a reactor in Mihama, west of Tokyo, killing
five workers. No radiation was released in that accident.
Source: Associated Press |