Sleeping in idling cars Japan can't Meet Kyoto Targets

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Says It May Not Meet Kyoto Targets
AP - Saturday May 15 5:34 PM SGTJapan, a staunch advocate of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, may not meet its targets for cutting pollution unless it takes drastic action....a progress report showing emissions of greenhouse gases up 8.2 percent in 2001 from the 1990 level. Automobile exhaust and effluents from coal-fired power plants are Japan's largest sources of pollution. But greenhouse gases from office buildings has also increased sharply....

See also: japanese: no common sense...heres why

[AssKissinger]

It's because their bratty kids will die even faster if they crank the heat up when they leave them to fry while they collect silver balls and packs of Marlboros at King Pachinko.

Mainichi Reports

Baby dies in parked car while mom plays pachinko
2003.04.04


IIDA, Nagano -- A 9-month old baby boy died after being left in a car here for several hours while his mother played pachinko, police said Friday.

[Captain Japan]

BizTrend: Japanese industry strongly opposed to green tax
Kyodo

The Environment Ministry is determined to introduce an environment tax on fossil fuels in fiscal 2005 to help prevent global warming, but Japanese industry is strongly opposed, saying it will adversely affect the recovering economy.

The ministry announced the tax on Friday last week when the Russian government said President Vladimir Putin has signed the Kyoto Protocol, paving the way for the global climate pact to enter into effect in February.

At a news conference, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said, "People must also realize something unusual is happening to the Earth. I hope the introduction of the tax will change lifestyles into ones with less of an environmental burden."

This is the tricky part...

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan is obliged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

In fiscal 2003, Japanese emissions were 8 percent higher than 1990 levels, and if Japan wants to achieve its reduction target, it will have to reduce emissions by 14 percent.

Ministry sources said Japan cannot achieve that under conventional measures, and if the environment tax is introduced greenhouse gas emissions can only be cut by 4 percent.

I really hope there is going to be some kind of independent auditing board that is going to be monitoring the gas levels...Ok, I'm joking. :P

[Taro Toporific]

]BizTrend: Japanese industry strongly opposed to green tax
Kyodo
... To promote energy saving and encourage the use of energy that produces less carbon dioxide (CO2), a tax of 2,400 yen per ton of carbon contained in the fuels (about 1.5 yen per liter of gasoline) will be imposed. ...

Sheeee-it, at "1.5 yen per liter of gasoline" is nothing--- the fixed costs of owning a car in Japan are much more than 40,000yen/m. That 1.5 yen per liter would need to be 1,500 yen per liter to reduce driving.

[jingai]

And even that little gas tax would create a HUGE source of revenue to be reinvested in other green projects. It would also give industry some time to adjust to higher prices, and I think this is who it's aimed at, as driving is already priced high enough to discourage people from using cars.

[kurohinge1]

OZ and USA fail to sign Kyoto Protocol ...

but we did get this really cool ice sculpture from Kenji-kun:

... Manami Tanaka touches the melting Opera House ice sculpture by world famous artist Kenji Ogawa, during an environmental protest against global warming outside Parliament House in Sydney.
Photo: AFP

... more

[vir-jin]

Via Japan Times 17th of Feb. 2005

Japan unfazed by rise in emissions
The chief Cabinet secretary also urged the United States to join the protocol, saying it is "regrettable" that the nation that emits the most greenhouse gases in the world has not participated in the agreement.

"The whole world should call on nonparticipating countries" to join the pact, Hosoda said.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050217a4.htm

Nobel laureate calls for joint action on environment

Kenyan Deputy Environment Minister Wangari Maathai urged the international community Wednesday to take joint action to protect the environment, according to Japanese officials.
The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner made the request during a meeting in Tokyo with Environment Minister Yuriko Koike as they exchanged views on such issues as global warming, according to the officials in a briefing with reporters.

While saying she welcomed the implementation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Maathai was quoted as telling Koike it was time for the world to come together to take joint action for environmental protection.

Maathai, on a nine-day visit to Japan that began Monday, was to make a keynote speech in an event in Kyoto later in the day to mark the coming into effect of the Kyoto Protocol.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050217a6.htm

Wangari Maathai- Kenyan environmental activist Professor Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her "contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace" ... This is the first time the award has recognized work on the environment, and Maathai is the first woman in Africa to receive the award.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_wangari_maathai.htm

[vir-jin]

World needs to be aware of its wasteful excesses: Maathai

The common refrain "mottainai" ("what a waste") can be interpreted to sum up when people squander natural resources, and this meaning should be spread the world over in an effort to maintain sustainable resources and not fight over them, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai said Monday in Tokyo.

Wangari Maathai

The visiting Nobel laureate said the Japanese word, which she learned during talks with Yoshinori Kando, head of the Mainichi Shimbun's editorial department, had a great impact on her.

Japan Times Feb 22nd
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050222f3.htm

[vir-jin]

Mainichi Feb. 14th

Nobel peace laureate urges efficient use of resources

Speaking exclusively to the Mainichi at its Tokyo Head Office on Monday, Feb. 14, Maathai lauded Japan's 3-R environmental pillars of "reduce, reuse and recycle."

"I love the 3-Rs -- reduce, reuse and recycle. I think that's a wonderful call to the world. One of the reasons why some of the countries don't want to support the Kyoto Protocol is exactly because they don't want to reduce their over-consumptive life pattern. One way of reducing that over-consumption is by learning to reuse a lot of the resources that we use and just throw away," Maathai told Yoshinori Kando, the Mainichi's Director and Chief Editor of the Tokyo Head Office.

more
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/specials/

[Captain Japan]

Japan sets numerical targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions
Mainichi

The Japanese government released a report on Wednesday on numerical targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of its responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol.

The report pledges to cut 8.6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector from 1990 levels, a hefty 1.6 percent increase on the current target.

Top government officials have been discussing how to urge sectors to cut greenhouse gas emissions because they believe that without taking any special measures, Japan's gas emissions will increase 6 percent in 2010 from 1990 levels.

The report also pledges to maintain emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) with only a 0.6 percent increase from 1990 levels....the rest...

The government will add more concrete measures in March before the Cabinet approves them sometime around May.

Right. Concrete. When in doubt, pour more concrete.

Japan caught napping on emissions curbs
Asahi

With the landmark Kyoto Protocol on global warming finally taking effect today, Japan probably should own up to a major embarrassment: that it may well be unable to meet its obligations under the treaty.

This possibility, suggested by an Asahi Shimbun survey, contrasts sharply with the fanfare that greeted Japan's decision to hold an international conference on climate change in 1997 in Kyoto to set reduction goals.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan has agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions between fiscal 2008 and 2012 by an average 6 percent from the fiscal 1990 level.

The Asahi Shimbun established that only a few prefectural and municipal governments have done anything about it. In fact, a nationwide survey found that only three of the 47 prefectural governments and seven of the 13 major cities can actually boast decreases in their greenhouse gas emissions....the rest...

[vir-jin]

Budgetary constraints also play a role as some regions offer only limited subsidies for installing solar power systems in homes or factories.

German government has supported installing solar power systems in homes and factories 1992- 2002 by funding 40% of the effective costs to installers during that period. The whole area where my parents live- 53 housesholds- were installing at the same time, the installing firm reduced the final costs 30 %.

[dimwit]

Canada is almost exactly in the same boat. Emission targets were rosy at best and no amount of conservation is going to save there asses. To wit, in Canada, no one wants to shut down hockey rinks in July.

vir-gin for all the smugness about Germany's conservation programs they have massively benefited from the shutting down of East Germany's reliance on lignite coal and their commitments to Kyoto are far less onerous than other developed countries.

[vir-jin]

vir-gin for all the smugness about Germany's conservation programs they have massively benefited from the shutting down of East Germany's reliance on lignite coal and their commitments to Kyoto are far less onerous than other developed countries.

Still paying for moving the government to Berlin, making the wild east a place west germans want to live, the EU. I'd say Germany is economically quite fucked at the moment.