BusinessGreen, June 17, 2010
Tom Young
Japan's government has run out of time to enact its proposed climate bill ahead of the country's elections to be held next month, but has promised to pass the legislation before the COP16 climate talks in Mexico later this year.
The ruling Democratic Party had hoped to enact the bill – which will lay the foundations for an emissions cap-and-trade scheme – by the end of the current session of parliament on Wednesday.
The lower house passed the climate bill last month, but the upper house debate has only just started and there is now not enough time for the bill to be passed before parliament is dissolved.
However, the government said that it plans to resubmit the bill after the elections on 11 July. Environment minister Sakihito Ozawa told news agency Reuters that he wanted to see the bill enacted by late November when the next UN climate summit kicks off in Cancun.
"We want to complete the bill by COP 16, so we can show our determination [on climate policy]," he said.
Japan is the world's fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, but has made one of the most ambitious emission reduction pledges of any industrialised country, committing itself to a 25 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.
However, the target has not yet been enshrined in law and has faced opposition from a number of business groups which are fearful that such an ambitious goal could damage the country's economy.
Ozawa did not rule out the possibility of the climate bill being watered down if his party failed to win an outright majority in the coming election, but he insisted that the government would initially aim to enact the bill in its current form.
"We think the bill is the best proposal, so we don't plan to make any changes," he said.
The bill includes a wide range of policy proposals, including plans to introduce an environment tax from next year and impose renewable energy targets requiring 10 per cent of the country's energy supply to come from renewable sources by 2020.
It would also give the government a year in which to craft rules for a new emissions trading scheme and another year to help businesses prepare, meaning any such scheme could still theoretically be operational by 2013.
Currently Japan only has a voluntary carbon market at a national level based on companies' pledged goals, which are mostly based on emissions per unit of production that leave room for rises in emissions when output grows.
The government hopes to link any cap-and-trade system with EU and proposed US schemes to provide the foundations for a genuinely global carbon market.