Gov't climate change plan sees future of LEDs, green cars and home fuel cells
(Mainichi Japan)
Converting all home and office lights to LEDs and boosting green vehicles' share of the domestic auto market to 50-70 percent by 2030 are part of a government plan revealed on March 4 to drastically reduce Japan's greenhouse gas emissions.
The basic building blocks of Japan's climate change policy were agreed by a joint Environment Ministry-Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry committee on March 4. The new measures are intended to be the backbone of Japan's efforts to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, adopted in the French capital in late 2015 at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21), and form the basis of an anti-global warming bill.
The proposals will be opened to public comment, and are expected to be approved by a Cabinet decision by the Group of 7 (G-7) summit in Shima, Mie Prefecture, set for May this year.
Under the climate plan, the government would set a short-term emissions reduction target of 3.8 percent or more of 2005 levels by 2020; a mid-term reduction of 26 percent from 2013 levels by 2030; and a long-term reduction of 80 percent from 2013 levels by 2050. The mid-term target -- which is the reduction promised in the Paris Agreement -- calls for a cut of 39.7 percent in emissions related to offices; 39. 2 percent related to home energy use; 27.5 percent from the logistics sector; and 6.5 percent from manufacturing.
In addition to the spread of LEDs in homes and offices and boosting the market share of electric and other green vehicles, the plan foresees the installation of some 5.3 million home fuel cells, plus the nearly universal adoption of smart energy management systems for the home, which can reduce power consumption from lighting, air conditioning and other basic facilities.
The Paris Agreement, which sets out rules for confronting global warming from the year 2020, calls for zero net greenhouse gas emissions by sometime in the second half of this century. The Japanese plan's 80 percent long-term emissions cut goal is the result of internal deliberation over the necessity of such a drastic reduction, and internal disagreement over including it in the government climate change plan.
Meanwhile, the government put off upping the near-term reduction target of 3.8 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, which was already in-place. Instead, the proposed plan adds an "or more" to the figure.
This target was originally adopted in November 2013, when all nuclear power plants in all of Japan were off-line due to the March 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns. The unwillingness to adopt more ambitious targets now, despite international criticism of Japan's tepid efforts on climate change, is due to the expectation that not many more reactors will go back into operation in the foreseeable future.
