By announcing, on Monday 30 March, the climate plan it will submit to the UN, Japan has disappointed NGOs. And for good reason, since this plan does not increase Japan's ambition.
The main objective of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) would be the same as 2015, i.e. a 26% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2013.
“While the whole world is phasing out coal, Japan's dependence on coal dilutes the efforts of the rest of the world and is a burden on achieving global goals aimed at combatting the climate crisis”, said Japanese NGOs in the CAN (Climate Action Network) with great disapproval.
They believe that Japan should adhere to the IPCC report on the 1.5°C target and aim for a 45% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. “As the fifth largest emitter in the world, Japan should take its responsibility and lead towards a decarbonised society instead of showing a bad example to other countries that have been considering reductions very seriously”, they added.
The World Resource Institute also emphasised the fact that “Japan not only has ample room to strengthen its climate plan, it has plenty of reasons to do so. As Europe and others embark on serious decarbonisation pathways, Japan could find itself at risk of being left behind holding stranded fossil fuel assets. (...) Studies indicate that if Japan followed a deep decarbonisation pathway by 2050, it could potentially reduce its fossil fuel import bills by 70% compared to 2016, and create over 60,000 additional jobs in the domestic renewable energy sector by 2030”.
The EU has committed to an objective of climate neutrality by 2050 and on Monday, it launched a referral on raising its 2030 target to at least -50% or even -55% (see other news). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)