Japan ready to ditch target for emissions cut

only japan is paying anyway...

Here is a statement from the president of the very "business friendly" but very concerned World Bank Group.

"A 4°C warmer world can, and must be, avoided – we need to hold warming below 2°C," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. "Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today. Climate change is one of the single biggest challenges facing development, and we need to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations, especially the poorest." http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf

And from the website of the extremely business friendly Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the largest accounting firm in the world,

"Our Low Carbon Economy Index evaluates the rate of decarbonisation of the global economy that is needed to limit warming to 2oC. This report shows that global carbon intensity decreased between 2000 and 2011 by around 0.8% a year. In 2011, carbon intensity decreased by 0.7%. The global economy now needs to cut carbon intensity by 5.1% every year from now to 2050. Keeping to the 2oC carbon budget will require sustained and unprecedented reductions over four decades." http://www.pwc.co.uk/sustainability-climate-change/publications/low-carbon-economy-index.jhtml

Good business now is no-growth, low-carbon, eco-business. There is no other option if humans want to hang around for long.

Japan is likely to abandon an ambitious pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter, the top government spokesman said on Thursday.

The pledge was made in 2009 before the Fukushima meltdown. The Kyoto protocol is basically dead. If the two largest economies in the world aren't going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions then I don't see why the third largest economy would have to either. It's like tying one hand behind your back when everyone else is fighting with two hands.

precisely. USA had the most accurate data on carbon emission and found no proof of global warming as caused by carbon emmissions. So they never agreed to join the Kyoto protocol. China doesn't care anyway. Europe is very noisy about carbon emmission but they never pay anyway.

NASA disagrees with you. CO2 isn't the biggest problem. Frozen methane is. As Japan tries to exploit the frozen methane found offshore, the warming climate will release more and it is 72 times more potent than CO2. Over the artic, it is now more then twice as abundant than in the last 400,000 years. Be like the Lt. that wanted more confirmation at 7am, Dec 7th, 1941. You like he will get it.

I hope Japan doesn't abandon its nuclear energy program.

But officials say the pledge will be difficult to fulfil because of the huge rise in fossil fuel use since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima put Tokyo’s nuclear energy program on hold.

Not just that, but oil use rose by 50%! Japan is lying to itself if it thinks a few years of above normal but still safe levels of radiation from a single accident in 50 years of nuclear power is worse than a few thousand years of unstable weather patterns and half of tokyo under water.