Japan outlines plans for post-Kyoto deal

Japan yesterday became the first nation to table detailed proposals for a post-Kyoto agreement, controversially including plans for emerging economies to be bound by mid-term carbon reduction targets.

According to Reuters reports, the Japanese government is expecting opposition from many delagates when it raises the proposals at the next round of UN climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland in December.

Fast-developing economies such as China and India have repeatedly resisted calls for binding emissions targets, arguing that until the US signs up to deep emission cuts they will not follow suit.

However, speaking at a press conference, Hiroshi Oe, deputy director general for global issues at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that fast-developing countries would have to accept some targets.

"Emerging economies should be engaged to the middle-level binding measures, clearly not the same as those of developed economies," he said.

Japan is proposing that rather than have to sign up to the absolute emission reduction targets being proposed for developed economies, emerging nations should instead work to targets designed to encourage them to enhance the energy and carbon efficiency of their economies.

For example, they could sign up to targets based on carbon emissions per unit of GDP or industry targets based on carbon emissions per unit of production.

Developing nations have previously expressed opposition to Japan's plans for industry targets, arguing that demanding targets for sectors such as steel or aluminium could be used to impose tariffs that stop inefficient factories in countries such as China and India exporting their goods.

The Japanese proposals come just days after the UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, played down fears that the financial turmoil gripping the world's markets would derail the negotiations to agree a post-Kyoto deal.

In an interview with Reuters, he insisted that high energy prices mean the necessity to agree a deal and speed the transition to low carbon technologies would remain at the top of the political and economic agenda.

"I have personally not seen an economic analysis that shows the current credit crisis is having a bigger impact on the global economy than current oil prices," he told the newswire.

De Boer also argued that strong leadership on climate change from governments could help remove some of the uncertainty currently dogging the investment community.

"In spite of what is happening at the moment, I do not have the impression that lack of capital is the issue. It is investment uncertainty that has created the nervousness out there. And I think, if governments are clear in terms of climate change, that could help reduce some level of this uncertainty," he said. " Because if you are about to build a €500m (£397m) power plant and you do not know if your government will go for greenhouse gas emissions cuts of five per cent or 50 per cent, that is a very risky decision to make."