Chinese official 'dismayed' at Japan's new emissions target

WARSAW - On the sidelines of the annual United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw, a Chinese official has expressed strong disappointment in Japan's new target of cutting carbon emissions by 3.8 percent by 2020 compared to its 2005 levels.

"I don't have any words to describe my dismay," Su Wei, deputy chief of the Chinese delegation and also director of the climate change department of China's National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference here on Thursday.

According to the Japanese new target to be formally announced on Friday, the country's carbon emissions will in fact be increased by 3.1 percent by 2020 compared to its 1990 levels, in sharp contrast to the fact that most nations are pledging to cut their emissions from the 1990 baseline.

"This is not only backward movement from the Kyoto Protocol, but also a startling backward movement from the Convention," Su told reporters.

The Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the world's first legally binding document that sets obligations on industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, whose first commitment period ended in 2012.

As a participant in the Kyoto's first commitment period, Japan has chosen not to be part of the second commitment period, which runs from 2013 to 2020.

But Japan still has the responsibility to implement the first commitment period, and as a party to the Convention, it must honor its commitments to reduce their emissions, Su said.