The Environment Ministry plans to propose that no penalties be imposed on countries that fail to meet targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a new framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
“Reaching goals is necessary, but we need to examine whether it’s actually effective to hand out severe punishments to [countries whose emissions] exceed [goals] even a little bit,” said Hideki Minamikawa, vice minister for global environmental affairs, at a briefing in Sendai on Tuesday.
The move came as the government is preparing for the 17th Conference of the Parties to the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP17, to be held in South Africa at the end of this year.
The Kyoto Protocol has a punitive clause that requires countries that do not attain their reduction goals in the 2008-12 commitment period to add 1.3 times the excess amount to new obligations in the next commitment period beginning 2013. The clause has been seen as providing motivation for countries to reduce their emissions and guaranteeing fairness.
However, the ministry concluded that if the punishment is maintained in the new framework, it will discourage countries from setting aggressive goals and eventually slow down the reduction of greenhouse gases globally, ministry officials said.
Greenhouse gas emissions, the officials said, could be reduced more effectively if countries set high goals on the condition they will not be punished for failing to meet them, although they would be subject to regular performance reviews and required to make progress reports.
