Japan has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% from 2013 levels over the next ten years, but climate activists argued the goal was insufficient to curb global warming as required by the Paris Agreement.
Each nation is expected to submit a headline figure and a comprehensive plan for reducing heat-trapping emissions by 2035 to the UN as part of the Paris Agreement.
As the fifth-largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, behind China, the United States, India, and Russia, Japan is mostly dependent on imported fossil fuels.
Tokyo’s environment ministry announced on Tuesday that the nation would cut emissions by 60% by the fiscal year 2035.
According to its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a voluntary commitment to be presented to the UN later on Tuesday, the fourth-largest economy in the world also intends to reduce emissions by 73% by fiscal 2040.
A UN database that tracks the submissions shows that only 10 of the nearly 200 countries that were expected to submit their new climate plans by February 10 done so on time.
Its “ambitious targets (are) aligned with the global 1.5 degree Celsius goal and on a straight pathway towards the achievement of net zero by 2050,” the Japanese ministry stated on Tuesday.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell has called the latest round of national pledges “the most important policy documents of this century”.
There is no penalty for submitting late targets, which are not legally binding but act as an accountability measure to ensure countries are taking climate change seriously and doing their fair share toward achieving the Paris goals.
In 2016, Japan committed to a 26 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It strengthened this in 2021 to 46 percent by 2030 compared to 2013 levels.
The Japanese government also on Tuesday approved its latest Strategic Energy Plan—which includes an intention to make renewables the country’s top power source by 2040.
Nearly 14 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan also sees a major role for nuclear power to help it meet growing energy demand from AI and microchip factories.
Almost all these fossil fuels must be imported, at a cost of around $470 million per day according to Japanese customs. Under the new plans, renewables such as solar and wind are expected to account for 40-50 percent of electricity generation by 2040.
