Japan PM welcomes Cancun climate deal
JAPAN: Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has welcomed the
outcome of UN climate talks in Mexico as a “big step” towards involving
the United States and China in an international framework to fight
global warming.
“This was a very big result,” Kan told Japanese media late Saturday
as two weeks of talks ended in Cancun by agreeing to set up a new fund
to manage billions of dollars in aid to poor nations.
“We see this as a very big step forward in our biggest task of
bringing the United States and China into an international framework,”
Kan said.
Japan has firmly stood against a proposed extension of the Kyoto
Protocol, calling it unfair because it does not include 70 percent of
the world’s emissions, with top polluters China and the United States
absent.
China, the world’s largest emitter, has no obligations under Kyoto as
it is considered a developing country. The United States, alone among
rich nations, rejected the treaty.
The 1997 treaty, which required the world’s wealthy nations to curb
carbon emissions, will expire in 2012.
The Cancun agreement called on nations to work on setting up a new
round of the Kyoto Protocol but did not obligate countries to be part of
it.
The compromise put off until next year’s meeting a decision on a
successor to the treaty.
Japanese industry had feared that the Kyoto pact would simply be
extended, maintaining what they consider an “unfair” greenhouse gas
reduction burden on them, the business daily Nikkei said.
Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation,
cautiously welcomed the Cancun deal.
“We welcome the move because this set a course under which the US and
China should be included in discussions on a successor framework,” he
told Nikkei.
Tokyo, Sunday, AFP |