14 Apr 2010
The Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday launched a mandatory scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large office buildings and factories. The first cap-and-trade programme in Asia, it allows entities to purchase emissions credits achieved by others. The city accounts for around 5 per cent of Japan's greenhouse gas emissions.
Tokyo, which is home to nearly 13 million people, aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 2000 levels by 2020. In the second phase of the plan, from 2015-2019, they will be required to slash emissions by 17% from their base-year levels.
The scheme - which covers around 1400 offices, commercial buildings and factories - steals the limelight from the Japanese Government’s nationwide carbon trading scheme which is mired in disagreement over details. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been pursuing a national trading scheme to help fulfil a campaign promise to cut emissions by 25 per cent from 1990 levels over the next decade.
The Tokyo move is an initiative by Shintaro Ishihara, the city's maverick 77-year old governor who has so far banned older diesel trucks and mandated 1000 ha of new parkland amidst Tokyo’s concrete landscape. Under his plan, the most energy-intensive office buildings, factories and universities must cut emissions by 6-8 per cent in the next five years compared with their highest three-year average during 2002-07. Industrial sites must reduce their emissions by 6 per cent or buy pollution credits from their more energy efficient counterparts.
Actual trading is set to begin in 2011.
Sources: IFandP Newsroom and Japan Today
