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CLIMATE SCIENCE
Ministers in Paris to boost flagging climate talks
By Marlowe HOOD
Paris (AFP) July 18, 2015


Japan pledges 26% emissions cut by 2030
Tokyo (AFP) July 18, 2015 - Japan, the world's sixth biggest greenhouse gas polluter, has pledged to cut emissions 26 percent from 2013 levels by 2030, a target observers judged inadequate to avert calamitous global warming.

In order to achieve this goal, nuclear energy, deeply unpopular and offline since the 2011 tsunami-induced Fukushima disaster, must provide about 20-22 percent of electricity production by then, said the country's official UN filing late Friday.

Renewable electricity production, including hydro power, would be expanded to 22-24 percent of the total from 11 percent for the year to March 2014, according to documents posted on the website of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other official reports.

"We have decided to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent -- an ambitious target that is in no way inferior internationally," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a meeting on Friday.

"It is urgently needed to boost efforts by the international community to deal with climate change," Abe said, adding that Tokyo was ready to help set up "a fair and practical framework" involving all major greenhouse gas emission countries.

Japan became the 19th party, including the 28-member EU bloc, to submit a carbon-cutting pledge to the United Nations ahead of a November 30-December 11 conference in Paris that must finalise a world climate pact.

A roster of national emissions curbs will support that agreement, which must take effect from 2020 with the goal to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Greenpeace called the pledge "one of the weakest targets of any industrialised nation" -- pointing out it would amount to a mere 18 percent reduction by 2030 over Japan's 1990 emissions.

The EU's target is 40 percent from 1990 to 2030.

The Climate Action Tracker, a science-based tool to analyse countries' climate efforts, has described the 26-percent target as inadequate and said Japan could reach it almost without taking any further action.

Japan's network of nuclear reactors, which once provided a quarter of the country's power, was switched off after the Fukushima accident, when reactors went into meltdown after their cooling systems were flooded.

As a result, the nation relied much more heavily on coal-fired power stations -- among the worst emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

On Tokyo's own count, total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 amounted to some 1.4 billion tonnes.

The global total is now about 50 billion tonnes per year, of which China, the United States and Europe account for about half.

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a two degree C pathway requires greenhouse gas cuts of 40-70 percent by 2050 compared to levels in 2010 -- and to zero or below by 2100.

Foreign and environment ministers and other high-level officials from 45 countries are set to gather in Paris Monday seeking to re-energise climate talks mired in technical details and political squabbling.

Just four months ahead of a UN conference in the French capital tasked with producing a historic climate pact, US scientists this week said 2014 was a record year for sea level rise, land temperatures, and the greenhouse gases that drive dangerous global warming.

But overwhelming consensus on the urgency of the problem has not translated into significant progress on united action to prevent the planet from overheating.

"The negotiations have not, strictly speaking, begun yet," Laurence Tubiana, France's chief climate negotiator, told journalists this week.

Ministers meeting on Monday and Tuesday "have to take ownership of the content of the negotiation, otherwise their negotiators will not really be able to engage on the key political issues," she said.

The political discussions will be followed in Bonn at the end of August with technical negotiations on the content of a draft agreement, with another ministers' gathering slated for September.

The 32 foreign and environment ministers and 13 senior negotiators in Paris, working under the guidance of France's chief diplomat Laurent Fabius, have their work cut out for them.

A draft agreement emerging from earlier rounds is little more than an exhaustive laundry list of problems and options, and is too unwieldy, Tubiana said.

The 195-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has embraced a goal of limiting average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Scientists say disastrous climate change can be avoided at this threshold, but warn the planet is on target for double that, or more.

Small island nations and poor countries in Africa and Asia, which will be hardest hit by climate-change effects, say 2C is not ambitious enough, and favour a 1.5 C target.

"As a people and a nation, our very survival is absolutely threatened by the effects of climate change," Tony De Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, told AFP ahead of the meeting.

Projected sea-level rise and enhanced storm surges, even under optimistic emissions scenarios, may force the inhabitants of some island nations to relocate before the end of the century.

- 'No guarantee' -

The Paris agreement will be supported by a roster of national emissions-curbing pledges. Many parties -- including China, the United States and the European Union -- have already submitted their plans.

"But there is no guarantee that when you combine the pledges they will collectively be consistent with the 2 C objective," Tubiana pointed out.

Hence the need for a mechanism to ensure pledges add up, and a review process to monitor adherence, she said. Both issues remain highly contentious.

An internal briefing document identifies seven major sticking points, and urges diplomats to focus on two in particular, "ambition" and "differentiation" .

In the jargon of the climate talks, ambition refers to the level of emissions cuts needed, and differentiation is about sharing out responsibility for action.

Poor nations say the West, which has polluted more for longer, should carry more of the burden for emissions cuts, but the US and other rich countries insist on equal treatment and point the finger to emerging economies like China and India now among the top emitters.

The question of money is another Gordian Knot.

Poor countries insist that rich nations must show how they intend to keep a promise of boosting climate finance to $100 billion (92 billion euros) per year from 2020.


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