Tokyo Enacts Japan's First Ordinance for Mandatory CO2 Cuts

On June 25, 2008, a plenary session of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly passed an amendment to Tokyo's Environment Protection Ordinance, making it the first local ordinance in Japan to require large-scale businesses to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and introduce an emissions trading system.

The original ordinance implemented in 2002 required businesses emitting certain amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) to prepare and submit reports on their emission reduction programs. By publishing evaluations of these reports, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) encouraged these businesses to take voluntary action to reduce CO2 emissions. These efforts were found to be insufficient, and so TMG will now be requiring them to reduce GHG emissions and adopt an emissions trading system as a supplementary measure.

Large-scale businesses, which number less than one percent of all businesses in Tokyo, account for about 20 percent of the CO2 emitted by all businesses. The average emission figure for one large-scale business is as much as the amount emitted by about 3300 households. By enacting this new ordinance, TMG obliges such businesses to reduce CO2 emissions by 15 to 20 percent from the average amounts emitted from 2005 to 2007 by fiscal 2020. The targeted businesses are those whose total consumption of fuel, heat and electricity amounts to more than 1,500 kiloliters of crude oil equivalent per year.

In addition, the new ordinance calls for the establishment of global warming prevention measures for small- and medium-sized businesses, promotion of renewable energy, and enhancement of measures to cut CO2 emitted by household electrical appliances.

http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/index.htm
- Large Tokyo Firms May be Obliged to Set CO2 Reduction Goals (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/db/706-e

Posted: 2008/09/07 06:03:47 PM