There's
troubling news (FT subscription reqd, alternate copy here)
coming from Japan, where the Kyoto protocol on Greenhouse Emissions was born in 1997. It seems that the Japanese aren't going to be able to meet their emissions targets specified in the agreement in time. Indeed, unless they buy a "large quantity" of emissions credits from other countries, they're not going to be able to meet their commitment at all.
Taishi Sugiyama, a climate expert at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Japan, said emissions were rising 1 per cent a year due to a larger-than-expected impact from vehicles and households. That made it impossible to cut real domestic emissions by the required 16 per cent within a few years, he said.
Is this the last nail in the coffin for the Kyoto protocol? And if so, which way do we go when it's buried? Was GWB right to pull out, and where will John Kerry take us, in either case?
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