A panel under the Environment Ministry has stated in a draft report it is possible for Japan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2030 from 1990 levels without relying on nuclear power, ministry officials said Thursday.
The potential reduction would be contingent on greater efforts to take energy conservation measures and adopt renewables, the officials said. The panel also said the figure could go up to 33 per cent if nuclear power accounts for 20 per cent of domestic power supply in 2030.
The projections made by the panel under the ministry’s Central Environment Council contrast with those approved by the industry ministry’s Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy on Wednesday, which calculate carbon dioxide emission reductions of just 16 per cent in 2030 if idled nuclear reactors remain offline.
Japan has pledged internationally to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions by 25 per cent in 2020 from 1990 levels, a target some critics say is now difficult to attain in light of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The draft does not include calculations for 2020.
The government’s Energy and Environment Council is expected to draw up a final strategy by this summer based on those calculations.
The draft was based on calculations conducted by the National Institute for Environmental Studies under four scenarios with nuclear power accounting for between zero and 35 per cent of power supply.
Until the Fukushima disaster, Japan was banking on increasing reliance on nuclear power to meet its 25-per cent reduction pledge because in generating electricity nuclear power emits substantially fewer amounts of CO2, a substance that causes global warming, than thermal power.
