Japan can transfer and acquire carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol until at least the second half of 2015 during a so-called “true up” period, government officials said today.
Japan joined New Zealand, Canada and Russia in declining to sign up for the treaty’s restrictions for the second round beginning next year. Envoys at United Nations climate talks in Doha agreed on Dec. 8 that countries with no emissions targets for 2013 and beyond won’t be able to acquire and transfer Kyoto permits and offsets.
Even so, Japan can continue to participate in international emissions trading after the first commitment period ends in 2012, Yuji Mizuno, an environment ministry official in charge of climate change policy, said at a briefing. The country will have about two and half years to reconcile the number of credits it will need to turn over in connections with its initial obligations, he said.
New Zealand made a similar remark last week, saying polluters will be able to buy UN Certified Emission Reductions, or CERs, until a true-up period reviewing current Kyoto commitments ends, a spokesman for New Zealand’s climate change minister Tim Groser said.
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