Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — Japan can transfer and acquire
carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol until at least the
second half of 2015 during a so-called “true up” period,
government officials said today.
Japan joined New Zealand, Canada and Russia in declining to
sign up for the treaty’s restrictions for the second round
beginning next year. Envoys at United Nations climate talks in
Doha agreed on Dec. 8 that countries with no emissions targets
for 2013 and beyond won’t be able to acquire and transfer Kyoto
permits and offsets.
Even so, Japan can continue to participate in international
emissions trading after the first commitment period ends in 2012,
Yuji Mizuno, an environment ministry official in charge of
climate change policy, said at a briefing. The country will have
about two and half years to reconcile the number of credits it
will need to turn over in connections with its initial
obligations, he said.
New Zealand made a similar remark last week, saying
polluters will be able to buy UN Certified Emission Reductions,
or CERs, until a true-up period reviewing current Kyoto
commitments ends, a spokesman for New Zealand’s climate change
minister Tim Groser said.
According to the decision announced at Doha, countries
with emission targets for the second commitment period can
transfer and acquire CERs generated by projects that reduce
pollution in developing nations.
Record Low
During the true-up period, offsets Japan earns from
financing projects to reduce emission before the end of this
month can be traded internationally, according to Mizuno. Any
offsets for cuts achieved after that can only be sent to Japan’s
registry and wont’ be eligible for transfer or acquisition
internationally, he said.
CERs for delivery in December fell 9.7 percent to 28 euro
cents (37 U.S. cents), the lowest price ever, in trading today
on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. Prices are down 93
percent since this year high of $4.18 euros on June 29.
The number of CERs distributed in Japan would be limited,
and efforts to cut emissions may be more costly, said Yukari
Takamura, an international law professor at Nagoya University’s
graduate school of environment studies, who was in Doha.
“Businesses cannot buy cheaper CERs, for example, from an
operator in Europe, so the cost of achieving an emission cut
target could be relatively more expensive,” she said in an
interview Dec. 14.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at
cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
