Prime Minister Naoto Kan told cabinet members Tuesday that he is thinking of urging the international community to back a per-capita target for carbon dioxide emissions.
At the same meeting, the cabinet decided to halt consideration of domestic emissions trading, which had been scheduled to start in fiscal 2013.
Carbon dioxide emissions in 2008 averaged 4.4 tons per capita worldwide and 9 tons a head in Japan, according to the prime minister. Kan proposed setting such a goal as halving the global number to 2.2 tons by 2050.
Japan’s own target of a 30% decrease in emissions from a baseline of 1990 by 2030 works out to a reduction to about 6 tons of carbon dioxide per capita from around 9 tons.
Populous developing countries, which have shown little taste for a global climate change framework, could find per-capita targeting easier to swallow. But the process of setting the bar is likely to prove contentious.
Kan seems to think that, with the country-specific approach of the Kyoto Protocol, there is no way to tell whether reduction requirements are fair, says a government official involved in climate change policy. The rules are also difficult for everyday people to understand, the official adds.
But for Japan, whose population is in decline, a per-capita target could end up becoming more onerous. Given that demographic and economic trends threaten to raise the country’s emissions-cutting burden, the government plans to move cautiously and keep the debate internal for now.
As for the emissions trading scheme, the cabinet appears to have ended up leaning toward industry, which has railed against what had been part of the campaign platform that helped lift the Democratic Party of Japan to power last year.
