Election likely to reset Japan climate target

JAPAN: When Japan elects its next government this month, climate change campaigners will be watching closely to see which party takes the levers of power in the world's second-largest economy.

Japan drew scorn from environmentalists when Prime Minister Taro Aso in June announced a greenhouse gas reduction target of eight percent from 1990 levels by 2020 far below the European Union pledge of a 20 percent cut. Activists mocked Japan's conservative premier as "George W. Aso" and charged that the Asian industrial powerhouse would worsen global warming and speed the pace of melting ice caps, rising sea levels and changing weather patterns.

Environmental group Greenpeace accused Aso of kowtowing to Japan Inc's heavy industry, calculating that Aso's goal could help doom the earth to catastrophic warming of three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The man who is now seen likely to replace Aso in the top job after the August 30 vote, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama, has promised a more ambitious target a 25 percent cut by 2020.

Hatoyama's centre-left DPJ has enjoyed a strong poll lead over Aso's business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has ruled Japan for more than 50 years except for one 10-month stint in opposition.

Japanese environmentalists have cheered the DPJ target, which Japan would present at international talks in Copenhagen in December aimed at agreeing a follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

"I hope for a change of government," said Yurika Ayukawa, a green activist and professor at the Osaka University Research Institute for Sustainability Science. "If the LDP stays in office, nothing will change." TOKYO, Friday, AFP