Japan’s climate plan sends ‘wrong signal’
April 14, 2020 · By Somini Sengupta and Brad Plumer for www.nytimes.com
Coal-fired thermal power units under construction in Yokosuka, Japan. Credit…Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
This is the year that all countries are due to update their climate targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement, and all eyes are on the world’s biggest industrialized countries: Will they strengthen their targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
On Monday, amid the global coronavirus pandemic, Japan became the first of the world’s richest countries to submit its new plan. Except there was nothing new in it at all. Japan said it would effectively stick to the target it set five years ago, which was to reduce its emissions by 26 percent from 2013 levels.
That’s important because Japan is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases. So, what Japan does to reduce its emissions is vital to the world’s overall efforts to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
The World Resources Institute said bluntly that Japan’s unchanged target “puts the world on a more dangerous trajectory.”
Japan’s announcement was also important in that it could send a signal to other countries, particularly the biggest emitters, whose decisions will, to a large degree, determine whether the world as a whole can avert climate shocks like widespread droughts, wildfires and the inundation of coastal cities.
The most important announcements from other global capitals are yet to come and it remains to be seen whether the economic fallout from the pandemic will shape those decisions in the months to come. In theory, all countries have until the end of the year to submit their targets.
The European Commission is expected to announce in September its updated targets to its member states; a final decision is not expected until later in the year. Neither China, which is currently the world’s biggest emitter, nor India, which ranks fourth, have signaled whether they intend to announce more ambitious climate targets.
The biggest wild card is also the biggest emitter in history: the United States. The Trump administration has quit the global accord and rolled back vital environmental protections, including on auto emissions standards. The presidential elections in November will decide which way the United States goes. Mr. Trump’s Democratic rivals have pledged to rejoin the Paris accord.
