Tokyo Unveils Proposals for 50% Cut in Greenhouse Gases By 2050

Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, yesterday unveiled an ambitious "vision" to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050, a plan that would involve the world's biggest emitters, the US and China, and go beyond the Kyoto agreement.

"There is only one earth, and there are no national boundaries for the air," said Mr Abe, who intends to present the proposals at the G8 summit in Germany.

He added: "Even the most outstanding strategy would be meaningless unless all people on earth participated. If the framework required economic growth to be sacrificed, we could not expect many countries to participate. We must create a new framework ... in which the entire world will participate in emissions reduction."

The 1997 Kyoto protocol commits industrialized nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 5% from 1990 levels, between 2008 and 2012. The US withdrew from the agreement, and opposes proposals that could harm its economy.

Discussion on a post-Kyoto agreement is expected to dominate talks at the G8 in June. Japan, which will host next year's summit, is concerned that an insistence on numerical targets will discourage the US from signing up to any agreement.

Officials in Tokyo stressed that Mr Abe's "Cool Earth 50" proposals were a non-binding idea. "When we talk about 2050 ... we do not have sufficient scientific knowledge to be concrete and precise in identifying a goal," said Koji Tsuruoka, at the foreign ministry.

Japan is likely to fail to meet its own Kyoto target of a 6% cut. Its greenhouse gas emissions as of March 2006 were 14% higher than in 1990.