Japan faces criticism over industry-specific emissions targets at climate conference
CHIBA, Japan: Japan's push to include industry-specific caps for carbon dioxide emissions in the world's next global warming pact ran into opposition Sunday from critics who charged it could lead to protectionism and hinder the battle against climate change.
Japan has been promoting a so-called sectoral approach in which global industries such as steel or cement would set international guidelines for greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents say such a system would set a level playing field for competitive industries.
But criticism of the plan was evident at a two-day gathering outside Tokyo of 20 nations that account for nearly 80 percent of gases blamed for global warming. The meeting included discussions on clean technology and how to finance anti-climate change efforts.
Tokyo has not released many details of its plan, but such a system would require steel plants around the world, for example, to meet similar energy efficiency targets. Failure to meet targets could result in penalties such as tariffs against products from inefficient plants.
Many participants worried sectoral caps could be used to favor industries in richer countries with access to more advanced technology, while competitors in less developed countries would suffer.
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Critics also said that while some sectoral caps might be useful, the system should not eclipse national targets needed to cut emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising to a point that triggers an environmental disaster.
"We see sectoral approaches not as an alternative to national reduction targets, but as a way to (achieve them)," said Arturo Gonzalo Aizpiri, Spain's secretary-general for climate change.
The G20 meeting — the fourth since the group was formed in 2005 — was meant to complement U.N.-led negotiations on a global warming pact to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol climate agreement when its first phase expires in 2012.
The U.N. climate conference in Bali in December gave nations until 2009 to hammer out such a deal. Scientists say the world has to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to keep global temperatures from rising high enough to cause environmental devastation.
The G20 talks were meant as a forum for discussion rather than negotiation, and no agreements were brokered.
Japan, which is struggling to meet its emissions cuts obligations under the Kyoto pact, has pushed for focusing on putting emissions limits on polluting industries such as steel and cement, rather than setting national caps on emissions.
Developing nations, however, voiced concerns that a sectoral approach, which has also gained support in the United States, would put their industries at a competitive disadvantage.
"We have to see how we could have sectoral policies that are equitable and don't — and that's a very important concern — result in trade protectionism," said Sergio B. Serra, Brazil's ambassador for climate change.
Japan has defended the proposal, which is favored by industries in Japan, as a way of avoiding what they see as the arbitrary and politically determined national targets negotiated in the Kyoto pact.
Some Japanese officials, however, appeared to tone the proposal down in the face of criticism Sunday, insisting that Tokyo was not trying to get rid of targets for individual countries.
"This is not something that is going to replace everything," Akira Amari, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, said of the sectoral approach. Amari, however, said such a system could apply to industries accounting for 70 percent of global emissions.