Are DPJ Environment Targets Just Hot Air?

A few days ago, I posted about the plans of the incoming Hatoyama government to cut ‘greenhouse emissions’ by 25% over 1990 levels. By the way, I put ‘greenhouse emissions’ in inverted commas because this is a strange term that doesn’t really mean anything… Greenhouse emissions are a natural part of the environment, and yet the term has been used to mean something very different in terms of the debate over environmental issues and ‘global warming’. Personally I prefer to use words that actually mean something, as much as possible, and I don’t like it when perfectly harmless terms are overtaken and used to denote something completely different…. I would have no issue with the terms ‘harmful greenhouse emissions’, or ‘manmade greenhouse emissions’, or anything similar. But ‘greenhouse emissions’ means something, and it doesn’t mean what it is used to mean in 99% of media reports…..

That all being said, it seems that the Hatoyama government’s ambitious environmental targets may be more of ‘smoke screen’ than ‘greenhouse gas safeguard’. According to a Japan Times story the other day, Hatoyama has already placed the ‘precondition’ that other major countries agree to these ambitious reductions. This is a perfectly reasonable position, although it will disappoint many environmental groups that have already touted the Hatoyama plan. In effect, it is exactly the same position as the Bush administration, that was so derided by so many. So if this is indeed Hatoyama’s position (and he is quoted as saying as much), then the DPJ environmental targets are truly nothing but hot air. Because the path to convincing other major nations to make similar ambitious cuts is something that is becoming more and more difficult politically around the world, and developing economies like China and India are virtually assured to be against it.

Business groups in Japan like the Keidanren have already begun mobilizing to argue against targets planned by the DPJ, which many call ‘severe’. Industries from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan and others are raising concerns about the economic feasibility and the burden on society, as well as the effect on Japanese competitiveness. While some will claim that this is just ‘business as usual’ for ‘big business’, the concerns are real. While there is no question that industries will inevitably be out to protect their own interests and profits, there is a dirty little secret about the interests of big business. That is that they happen to often coincide with the interests of society….. In tough economic times, no one can afford massive increases in the cost of energy (there was enough of an uproar when the cost of gasoline went up last year…). And at a time when the Japanese economy and Japanese industry is struggling to lift itself back onto the world stage where they were so successful a decade or two ago, such crippling environmental standards will only make this impossible. Especially given that in spite of the rhetoric from President Obama, it seems increasingly unlikely that sweeping environmental reforms and major legislation such as cap and trade will pass a US congress that is suffering from a great deal of push back over massive spending. This is something that Japan is unlikely to tolerate either, and as soon as the true cost of the Hatoyama proposals becomes known, this will surely be a program that will dissipate into the atmosphere faster than the greenhouse gases it seeks to control……