December 11, 2007

Kyoto Protocol - Many Happy Returns!

Ten years ago on December 11th in Kyoto, Japan, we celebrated a groundbreaking international agreement by the world's Governments to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Central to that agreement was how the Governments would work together to achieve such a reduction - its aims and objectives were discussed and agreed at the third United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP3) in Kyoto in 1997; that international procedure to save the world's climate is the Kyoto Protocol.

Greenpeace projects a message 'SAVE THE CLIMATE' onto the famous local landmark 'Lange Anna' to highlight © Bente Stachowske/Greenpeace

Today, ten years on, we know more about climate science and the predicted impacts of climate change from the latest report released two weeks ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a scientific body of over 2500 climate scientists, who shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States of America. The findings revealed more `inconvenient truths' and quite simply, that the mechanisms and systems of CO2 reduction agreed through the Kyoto Protocol must be put in place within the next five years, or it will be too late.

However, there has been much misleading talk recently referring to the `end of the Kyoto Protocol' and `when the Kyoto Protocol ceases to exist in 2012'. Such talk has been spread deliberately to derail the good work done already by the 175 countries, who have ratified the Protocol, leaving the United States as the only developed country left to sign. Ironically the United States is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases and for the last ten years has attempted to hoodwink the world into believing that it wanted to solve the problems of climate change by ignoring them and attacking the Kyoto Protocol. In reality, the Kyoto Protocol is the only system in the world that the 175 Governments including Japan agree, and we are about to transition between phases one, which began in 2008 and phase two, which will start in 2013.

The world cannot afford to spend another ten years to develop another system to tackle climate change and agree targets for reduction. As Germany's Chancellor Merkel said at the G8 Leaders Meeting in Heiligendamm in 2007: �gWe cannot choose the targets. Nature defines the targets and the timetable needed to avoid dangerous climate change; and it is clear that there is no time for diversions or dead ends.�h

Today, as the World's Environment Ministers gather in Bali, Indonesia, for the thirteenth Climate Change Conference (COP13), it is time for Japan to stand up to the U.S.'s disruptive tactics and support and strengthen its Kyoto Protocol, a protocol hard fought and hard won. It is a protocol of which to be proud; it is a protocol taken seriously by 174 other countries determined to save the climate. Japan must set its own targets - nothing less than 80% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2050 on 1990 levels will be effective. Japan must release itself from its political inertia and invest in a safe and clean future; to focus on improving the climate rather than their bank balances. Leading the Japanese people to believe in the False Solutions to Climate Change that are too risky, too late, and too expensive offers nothing but false hope. The Japanese people deserve more. We deserve a future away from nuclear and coal power, and away from Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies that the scientists themselves say will take too long to develop. The solutions are here today and ready to switch on now - renewable energy and energy efficiency.

A Native American proverb states - Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money. If we know this now, why wait until it is too late?

Jun Hoshikawa
Executive Director, Greenpeace Japan