Kyodo News
The Democratic Party of Japan will pledge a 25 percent cut in Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels in its manifesto for the upcoming national campaign, party officials said Sunday.
Bidding to wrest power from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition, the DPJ has decided to set a more ambitious emissions goal than the 8 percent target set last month by Prime Minister Taro Aso. The DPJ’s target, however, is the same as that pledged by the LDP’s coalition partner, New Komeito.
The DPJ’s strategy would entail the adoption of a cap-and-trade system under which each company’s emissions would be capped at a certain level and quotas could be traded between companies, the officials said.
Emissions trading was taken up as an effective way to control heat-trapping gases at the Group of Eight summit earlier this month in Italy, but the government is reluctant to implement such a system in light of opposition from the business sector.
The DPJ is also pledging introduction of a feed-in tariff, or minimum price standard system, that would oblige electric utilities to buy all renewable energy output at a fixed, incentive price to overcome cost disadvantages compared with fossil fuels, according to the officials.
Japan Times for more