NGOs criticize Japan for opposing extending Kyoto climate pact+

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec. 2 Kyodo -
Environmental groups criticized Japan at the ongoing key U.N. climate meeting
in Mexico on Wednesday as the Japanese government reiterated its opposition to
setting new carbon emissions cut targets under the Kyoto Protocol, whose
five-year round ends at the end of 2012.
Hideki Minamikawa, a senior Environment Ministry official, said at a news
conference in Cancun that a new emissions cut framework involving China and the
United States is needed, noting that the countries obligated to cut emissions
under the current pact account for just 27 percent of the world's carbon
dioxide emissions.
China and the United States are the two largest CO2 emitters in the world,
accounting for roughly 40 percent of the world's emissions, but they have no
reduction obligations within the framework.
The senior negotiator also said Japan simply reiterated its position when it
said Monday that it would not set post-2012 targets under the Kyoto pact under
any circumstances, while acknowledging that the announcement of such a stance
has disappointed many people.
On Tuesday, a network of environmental groups conferred a ''Fossil of the Day''
award on Japan to express its displeasure with the Japanese position, which was
made clear on the first day of the 16th Conference of the Parties to the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP16.
Developing countries are calling for setting a second commitment period under
the Kyoto treaty so that developed countries would continue cutting
heat-trapping gases, noting that they are primarily responsible for the current
climate crisis.
But Japan and other developed countries are calling for a new emissions cut
framework from 2013 because the Kyoto pact imposes reduction obligations only
on developed countries and because other major emitters, notably China and the
United States, do not have obligations under it.
The United States has refused to ratify the treaty.
Sivan Kartha, a climate scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told
a news conference on Wednesday that the Kyoto Protocol binds countries not
because they are large carbon emitters but because they are responsible for
solving global warming.
Developed countries are responsible for about three-quarters of the historical
emissions in the world, and they are also economically capable of making
reductions, he said.
Yuri Onodera, an official of FoE Japan, a Japanese environmental group, said
Japan's position illustrates its lack of a sense of responsibility.
''The fact is that no one can afford (to stay in) permanently immovable
positions,'' said Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate secretariat, at
a briefing. ''I reiterate that governments can deliver a balanced package if
they engage in a flexibility of compromise.''
The 1997 protocol requires developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions by an average of 5 percent from 1990 levels over the five-year period
through 2012.
Without the timely creation of a successor climate regime, there could be a
blank period in which no country is obligated to reduce heat-trapping gas
emissions.
This year's climate talks are scheduled to run through Dec. 10, with
ministerial-level talks set to begin next Tuesday.
==Kyodo