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Take Action: Tell the Japanese Prime Minister How You Feel!


Japan Proposal for Kyoto Summit Scandalous, WWF Says

October 6, 1997

Kyoto buildings 
river side

Kyoto, Japan-- The World Wide Fund for Nature condemned as "scandalous" the Japanese government's proposal for reducing greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, Sunday, and called on industrialised nations to flatly reject it.

As full details of the proposal emerged over the weekend, it was revealed that Japan suggests allowing industrialised countries to make extremely marginal reductions in their emissions by as late as 2008-2012. In a second five-year period up to 2017, countries would only be required to ensure their emissions were lower than in 1990.

"The Japanese plan presents a bleak future for the environment, already suffering from the serious impacts of global warming including rising sea-levels, rising sea temperatures, and increased extreme weather patterns to name just a few," said Andrew Kerr of WWF's international Climate Change Campaign. "The plan is laughable when you consider that some European nations already have cut their greenhouse gas emissions by several times more than the amount Japan proposes for emission reductions more than a decade from now."

According to the just released "WWF State of the Climate" report that evaluates the global impacts of climate change, a long list of impacts already are visible today including the destruction of several land and marine ecosystems in Asia and around the world because they cannot keep up with the pace of global warming.

The Japanese proposal also proves the government is back-tracking on a Ministerial Declaration concluded at the 1996 climate summit in Geneva. At that conference, 130 countries, including Japan, agreed that the Kyoto Summit should agree on "legally-binding objectives for emission limitations and significant overall reductions" of greenhouse gases. At the Geneva meeting, the Ministers recognised that climate change science showed human activities, primarily the burning of coal, oil and gasoline, are already affecting the planet's climate and the impacts would be wide-ranging and irreversible, posing threats to food supplies, public health and the survival of many species. Nations also agreed that "significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions are technically possible and economically feasible".

WWF is calling on industrial nations to cut their carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2005. A WWF report written by Dr. Haruki Tsuchiya of the Research Institute for Systems Technology, in Tokyo, (to be released by WWF later this month) shows that Japan can reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by nearly nine percent by 2005 and by almost 15 percent by 2010 without damaging the economy. Policies and measures suggested by the WWF report would stimulate the economy and help position Japan as a world leader in the development of new, energy efficient technologies.

"Environmentally, Japan's plan is worse than no plan whatsoever because it pretends to legitimise an emissions cut that is so low it will produce no tangible result in the effort to combat climate change, " said Kerr. "Even more alarming, it encourages many nations also to cut their emissions by much less than they now plan. This proposal is an embarrassment for Japan because it spells disaster for the Kyoto Summit in December which will be seen as an absolute failure by several European nations and the entire environmental community if such meagre greenhouse gas emission cuts are adopted."

The complicated emission-reduction formulae that Japan proposes would require Japan to make only a 2.5 percent cut in emissions. The United States, responsible for over one-fifth of world releases of carbon dioxide, would only need to make a 2.6 percent reduction. Highlighting the political irrelevance of the Japanese formula, Germany, Denmark and the UK would have to make reductions of 3.1 percent, 2.5 percent and 3.7 percent respectively. But Germany already has achieved around half of its national target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2005. Denmark is aiming for a 20 percent reduction by the same date and the UK's target is a 20 percent cut by 2010.

CONTACT: In Tokyo, Andrew Kerr (speaks English and Dutch) or Yurika Ayukawa (speaks English and Japanese) Mobile tel: +81 10-760 5022 and Hearton Hotel, +81 75-222 1300.

In Gland, Switzerland, Liz Foley, WWF-International (speaks French and English) Telephone: +41 22 364 9554; E-mail: efoley@wwfnet.org