Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is set to attend the U.N. Summit on Climate Change in New York that is being convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on Tuesday.
Hatoyama's attendance essentially marks the opening salvo in his environmental diplomacy.
Leaders from around the world, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will gather to thrash out an international framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
Signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change plan to agree on the new framework at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to be held in Denmark in December. But with only three months to go before it is held, the intentions and circumstances of the signatories remain tangled. This has raised fears that an agreement may be beyond their grasp.
At the New York summit, we hope the participants will demonstrate their determination to reach an accord in December and find a way to advance the negotiations.
Last week, Hatoyama announced at the Asahi World Environment Forum 2009 sponsored by The Asahi Shimbun that his administration would aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. The declaration was favorably received around the world, which is willing to listen to Japan's views more than before. Tuesday's meeting is an opportunity for the new administration to push its environmental vision.
The environmental policies of the past administration led by the Liberal Democratic Party tended to invite criticism for not being tough enough. The fact is, Japan was passive for too long. Its initial reluctance to join the International Renewable Energy Agency and the way it has been left out of moves by the United States and Europe to create an international market for carbon emissions trading are but two such examples.
We want Japan to seize the opportunity of a change of government to shift its gear to accelerate environmental diplomacy. It needs to show its determination to cooperate with Europe to win over the United States and China. To begin with, Hatoyama's proposal for the 25-percent cut is based on the premise that all the major economic powers agree to implement ambitious goals. The administration needs to strengthen its diplomatic efforts to secure that agreement.
For example, while encouraging low-carbon economic growth among developing countries by providing them with financial aid and technical cooperation, industrialized countries will be allowed to count actual results of their assistance as emissions reductions. Hatoyama's team needs to put together a blueprint for this new framework as soon as possible and present it at forums where international negotiations are held.
It should implement the "Hatoyama initiative" to support efforts by newly emerging and developing countries to curb global warming with various forms of assistance and use it as leverage to find a middle ground with major emitters such as China and India.
By taking this approach, Japan could reap some benefits, too. The issue of how to incorporate industrialized countries' financial and technical support for newly emerging and developing countries into emissions reductions of those that provide aid will also affect Japan's efforts to achieve its own emissions reduction target. And if it is to turn aid into business opportunities for Japanese companies, Japan should take the initiative to design the next framework from its initial stages.
The climate change summit will be followed by a Japan-U.S. summit and the Group of 20 summit on the financial crisis. With these items on the agenda, the Hatoyama administration must not forget the viewpoint that the establishment of a new framework is the starting point to spread a low-carbon economy across the world.
source--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 18(IHT/Asahi: September 19,2009)
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