Japan Says to Start Trial Carbon Trading in Oct
Date: 30-Jul-08
Country: JAPAN
"We'll set down rules in September on how to take part in (a trial carbon trading scheme) and in October we'd like to get started," Hiroshi Kamagata, director for the cabinet secretariat at Cabinet Office, said at a briefing on Tuesday.
Tuesday's cabinet agreement takes forward an announcement by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda last month that Japan would put a price on CO2 in order to help move the world's fifth-biggest polluter towards a low carbon society.
Fukuda had called for an autumn start to such a scheme.
"Japan should take the lead in building a low carbon society in advance to the rest of the world. This is the first concrete step toward that," Fukuda said when cabinet members met in the morning, referring to Tuesday's action plans.
Japan's trial carbon trading market runs into the danger of drawing limited participation domestically, as key steelmakers and other big emitters in the country argue that a move closer to a European Union-style cap-and-trade system that binds polluters to mandatory emissions limits would curb their growth.
But the introduction of a comprehensive trading scheme could lure overseas banks and other institutions, given the growing need for a place to trade surplus emissions credits, analysts said.
Tuesday's action plans included some details such as moves to measure emissions and the timing and efficiency targets of a range of innovative technology such as advanced solar power systems, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and affordable fuel cells.
But lacked key details such as how much the scheme would cost and how costs would be apportioned to the government, corporate and household sectors.
The plans also did not detail Japan's medium-term emissions target. The country's long-term goal is to cut emissions by 60-80 percent from current levels by 2050.
"The next fiscal year's budget is to be discussed later firstly by the ministries concerned. We haven't done any calculation yet," Kamagata told reporters.
Japan has, until now, encouraged voluntary reduction pledges from individual industries and refrained from announcing a medium-term emission cut target, which it says is a key issue in UN talks until the December 2009 conference in Copenhagen on a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
The country is under pressure to meet its Kyoto reduction obligations to cut emissions by 6 percent from the 1990 levels during 2008-2012.
"In order to take leadership in upcoming multilateral negotiations on climate change, Japan will definitely meet the Kyoto obligations," Prime Minister Fukuda was quoted by Kamagata as saying to the earlier cabinet meeting.
(Reporting by Risa Maeda; Editing by Valerie Lee)