Japan will attempt to reduce emissions to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, which is about equivalent to eight percent below 1990 levels. Critics will say that the new targets aren’t remotely bold enough for the world’s second largest economy and fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, just as some say the cuts proposed for the US in the Waxman-Markey Bill are off the mark.
Global leaders are looking to beat economic recession and rising carbon emissions by a unified approach of developing a low-carbon economies and investing in clean energy projects aimed at ensuring energy security and economic growth.
For the country where the Kyoto Protocol was laid out, Japan’s not doing so well. Instead of reducing its emissions to hit the country’s Kyoto target of dropping 6 percent from 1990 levels, Japan’s emission increased by 2.3 percent in the in the fiscal year only up to March, as compared to last year’s levels.