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2 Japan starts Kyoto climate drive -
in reverse By Hisane Masaki
TOKYO - Gasoline price cuts in Japan could
not have come at a more awkward time
diplomatically for the world's second-biggest
economy and major emitter of gases widely blamed
for global warming.
While lower gasoline
prices, albeit likely to be short-lived, have come
as a boon to Japanese motorists, they might hurt
the nation's environmental credentials ahead of
the summit of the Group of Eight (G8) leading
industrialized nations in Hokkaido, northern Japan
in early July.
Gasoline price cuts began
on April 1 after a long-lasting but provisionally
higher gasoline tax rate, which was still lower
than in
most other industrialized
countries, was allowed to expire the day before
due to strong objections from opposition parties.
The five-year "first commitment period" of
the Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming also
officially started in Japan on April 1, the first
day of the nation's fiscal year.
Gasoline
is one of fossil fuels whose burning has resulted
in increased global emissions of carbon dioxide
(CO2), a primary heat-trapping greenhouse gas
(GHG) that contributes to global warming. Japanese
government officials say that gasoline price cuts
might send a wrong message to the international
community and raise doubts about the nation's firm
commitment to the fight against climate change.
With climate change expected to top the
agenda at the G8 summit, Prime Minister Yasuo
Fukuda and other government officials have
expressed Japan's strong desire to take the
leadership role in international efforts to
establish a new framework to replace the Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012. Negotiations on a
post-Kyoto regime are under way to reach an
agreement by the end of 2009.
G8 comprises
the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia. Japan
will also invite leaders from eight leading non-G8
GHG emitters, including China and India, for an
"expanded dialogue" on climate change to be held
on the last day of the G8 summit, in a bid to get
them on board in reducing global emissions.
In early March, Fukuda inaugurated a panel
of experts to discuss ways to address global
warming, including the possible introduction of a
mandatory GHG emissions trading system, ahead of
the G8 summit. The 12-member panel is headed by
business tycoon Hiroshi Okuda, a senior advisor
for Toyota Motor Corp and special advisor to the
prime minister.
Okuda once served as
Toyota Motor chairman and as head of the Japan
Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the
nation's most powerful business lobby. Okuda still
wields considerable influence in Japanese business
circles. It is widely believed that Fukuda picked
Okuda as his panel's head to quell opposition from
some businesses to tougher anti-global warming
measures, including a mandatory GHG emissions
trading system.
Political tension over
tax The ruling and opposition parties have
been locked in a sharp confrontation in the Diet,
Japan's parliament, over a government tax bill
aimed at maintaining provisionally higher rates
for gasoline and other road-related taxes. At the
center of the dispute is the tax surcharge of
about 25 yen (24 US cents) per liter of gasoline.
The rates for road-related taxes were
raised in the 1970s to expedite road development
projects across the country. The higher rates were
introduced as a provisional measure but have been
maintained since. At present, revenues from such
taxes, which will total an estimated 5.4 trillion
yen in fiscal 2008, which started on April 1, are
still mostly earmarked for road-related projects.
The government and the ruling parties have
warned that without the provisionally higher
rates, tax revenue shortfalls totaling about 2.6
trillion yen would occur annually - 1.7 trillion
yen for the state and 900 billion yen for local
governments.
The largest opposition group,
the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), demanded that
the provisionally increased road-related tax rates
be scrapped from April 1 and that revenues from
such taxes, which the party claims - and many
experts agree - have often been used wastefully,
be fully allocated for general purposes.
On March 27, only four days before the
expiry date of the provisionally higher rates for
gasoline and other road-related taxes, Fukuda, who
doubles as president of the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP), announced a compromise
plan despite anticipated resistance from some
lawmakers within the LDP.
Rejecting an
opposition demand to scrap the provisionally
higher rates for road-related taxes from April 1,
Fukuda promised to use all of the estimated 5.4
trillion yen revenues from such taxes for general
purposes from fiscal 2009.
But the DPJ
immediately dismissed Fukuda's compromise plan as
insufficient. Until Friday, the DPJ-led opposition
camp had refused to even hold deliberations on the
government tax bill in the House of Councilors, or
the Upper House of the bicameral Diet, where the
ruling camp lacks a majority. The bill cleared the
ruling camp-controlled House of Representatives,
or the Lower House, at the end of February.
The LDP-led coalition, which wants to
reinstate the provisionally higher road-related
tax rates as soon as possible despite an
anticipated public backlash against a resurge in
gasoline prices, is now poised to resort to the
constitutional power it currently enjoys in the
Lower House to railroad through the controversial
tax bill later this month.
If the
opposition-controlled Upper House votes down the
bill, the ruling coalition-dominated Lower House
can override the Upper House decision on the
strength of the LDP-led coalition's two-thirds
majority.
Under Article 59 of the
constitution, a bill can be sent back to the Lower
House for a second vote if the Upper House votes
it down or holds off on taking a vote on it within
60 days of receiving it - by April 29 in the case
of the contentious tax bill. The bill will become
law if passed in the second Lower House vote with
the support of a two-thirds majority.
The
ruling camp used the rarely used constitutional
power in January to enact a controversial bill to
resume Japan's refueling mission in the Indian
Ocean in support of the United States-led
anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan.
Despite the expiry of the gasoline tax
surcharge on gasoline, prices for the fuel have
not yet gone down automatically by the same amount
nationwide as most gas stations first need to sell
the already taxed gasoline stored in their tanks.
The gasoline tax is levied when oil wholesalers
ship their products.
Still, many gas
stations began to offer discounts at a loss
immediately to survive cut-throat competition.
According to a survey released by the Oil
Information Center on Wednesday, the nationwide
average retail price of regular gasoline stood at
142.2 yen per liter on April 1, down 10.7 yen from
the day before.
Kyoto goal 'within
reach' The gasoline price cuts come at a
time when Japan is in hot water over reaching its
GHG emission reduction goal under the Kyoto
Protocol.
Japan must reduce its annual GHG
emissions by 6% on average between fiscal 2008 and
2012 from the 1990 level, yet its emissions in
fiscal 2006, which ended in March 2007, were 6.4%
above the fiscal 1990 level, according to
preliminary government figures. Failure to fulfill
its commitment under the treaty would represent an
embarrassing loss of face for the nation and deal
a serious blow to its clout in the world of
environmental diplomacy.
On March 28,
Fukuda's cabinet formalized a revised and
strengthened version of the 2005 program aimed at
achieving the nation's Kyoto target. The cabinet's
formal endorsement of the revised Kyoto program,
which includes additional emission reduction
measures by industries and others, came only four
days before the official start in Japan of the
Kyoto Protocol's "first commitment period".
The revised Kyoto program is in line with
a final report approved in early February by the
joint council of the Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry (METI) and the Environment Ministry,
which reviewed the original program adopted in
April 2005, two months after the Kyoto Protocol
took effect. The revised program contains
additional measures that are expected to slash GHG
emissions by a total of 37 million tonnes CO2
equivalent per annum.
The revised Kyoto
program calls for the government to check progress
on anti-global warming measures included in the
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