Can Japan's climate policy get back on track after Fukushima?

(guardian-, 17 Apr 2015) At the Kyoto summit Japan was a global leader in the fight against climate change, but post-Fukushima its emissions are rising and its reduction policy is in tatters, overshadowed by the debate over nuclear power.

Less than two decades ago, Japan positioned itself in the vanguard of the global fight against climate change when it helped broker the Kyoto protocol.

Now, though, it is Fukushima , not Kyoto, that has come to define Japan’s energy policy, and with potentially grim consequences for its already stalled attempts to reduce CO2 emissions.

It was telling that in the same week as a court blocked the restart of two nuclear reactors on the Japan Sea coast – citing concerns over their vulnerability to a major earthquake – the government released emissions data showing just how far Japan has regressed since the more hopeful days of the Kyoto summit in 1997.

Environment ministry data showed that Japan’s CO2 emissions rose to the second-highest level on record in the year to March 2014.

Local media reports said that Japan, the world’s fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, aims to reduce CO2 emissions by about 20% from 2013 levels by 2030 – a much lower target than other major developed economies. In earlier climate talks it pledged a more ambitious reduction of 25% by 2020 from 1990 levels.

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guardian-, 17 Apr 2015: Can Japan's climate policy get back on track after Fukushima?