Global Warming in Japan
Japan Adopts Action Plan Against Global Warming - 7/29/08
Japan's cabinet on Tuesday adopted a plan to slash carbon emissions up to 80 percent by 2050 by starting carbon trading and stepping up research on carbon-capture technologies.
"Japan must continue showing leadership on the issue of environment," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the cabinet meeting. "To lead the world, Japan must take the initiative by achieving a low-carbon society."
Under the plan adopted Tuesday, Japan will start carbon trading, which has developed into a rapidly growing market in the European Union, on an experimental basis later this year with an eye to fully introducing it later.
The plan also calls for research on carbon-capture technology, which contains greenhouse gases emitted by power plants and factories and stores them underground, to put in place a nationwide system by 2020.
Japan will also increase the use of solar power tenfold by 2020 and 40 times more by 2030, while forging ahead with plans to build nine more nuclear reactors by March 2018.
Japan Baseball Looking to Fight Global Warming with Shorter Games - 3/18/08
As part of the fight against global warming, Japanese professional baseball has come up with a plan to shorten its games and reduce carbon dioxide emissions at stadiums.
Teams will aim to cut playing time by six percent, or 12 minutes, from the average of three hours and 18 minutes per game, Japan pro baseball officials said Tuesday.
Under the plan, teams will be required to spend no more than two minutes and 15 seconds when they change from fielding to batting.
Pitchers will be asked to throw within 15 seconds of receiving the ball from the catcher when no runners are on base. The proposal to cut playing time was set in accordance with Japan's pledge to cut its emissions of greenhouse gasses by six percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2010 under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Japanese baseball officials said staging games results in a huge amount of carbon dioxides to be discharged through the use of energy to move players and spectators, supply electricity for lighting and other purposes.
Japan Vows to Lead Global Warming Fight - 3/20/07
Japan aims to play a leading role in the post-Kyoto battle on global warming and will seek the full engagement of the USA and China, the world's top two polluters, officials said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will ask his cabinet ministers to develop a package of proposals to present to next year's Group of Eight summit of world leaders which Japan will host, they said.
Japanese government ministers will "discuss proposals on a new framework that will ensure participation by the United States and China, the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitters," a foreign ministry official said.
The 168 countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases will open talks in 2008 over the next round of pledges for tackling global warming, after the U.N. pact's present commitment period expires.
Experts say Kyoto's so-called second commitment period must deliver massive reductions in emissions to avoid potentially crippling damage to the world's climate system by fossil-fuel gases.
