Japan’s Great Expectations

By TOMOMI YOSHIHAMA
Published: December 12, 2009

TOKYO — Last week, the Japanese delegation submitted their draft resolution. Their position aligns with the EU countries, mainly France and the UK. The Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has stated that Japan is going to cut its emissions by 25% by 2020 based on 1990 levels and combat the global environmental problem. Although their reduction estimates estimate may be too optimistic, this shows their ambitions for the Security Council meeting on December 16.

Another responsibility Japan will bear as a developed country is economic and technical support to developing countries. They have already decided to loan $400 million to Indonesia to help their efforts against climate change. However, Japan is facing their own problems of high unemployment rates and an inflating budget deficit. Furthermore, like many countries, they have not recovered from the financial crisis.

Although international economic and technical aid is an essential and possibly a sole way for Japan to enhance their international presence at the moment, public increasing discontent could be inevitable if their international aid increases any more. The Japanese government, which have led in the advocacy efforts for an ‘idealistic’ reduction rate of CO2 emissions along with the EU since COP-3, should now advocate a realistic target for aid as well as reduction goals.