Japan has announced the creation of a $10-billion fund to support e orts of developing countries to combat climate change. Japanese prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, made the announcement in a speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, held last week in Davos, Switzerland. Fukuda also announced that Japan will set a “quantified national target” to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, starting immediately.
e fund, dubbed Cool Earth Partnership, will start disbursing money this year and continue for five years, Fukuda says. It will set aside $8 billion for assistance in climate change mitigation and $2 billion for grants, aid, and technical assistance to developing countries switching to clean energy.
“Japan will cooperate actively with developing countries’ e orts to reduce emissions, such as those to enhance energy e ciency,” Fukuda says.
Japan plans to invest about $30 billion in R&D in the environment and energy sectors over the next five years. Technological breakthroughs are necessary to halve global GHG emissions by 2050, a level that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deems necessary to avert global catastrophe, Fukuda says.
“Japan will be accelerating the development of zero carbon dioxide (CO ) emission coal-
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fired power plants and low-cost, high-e ciency solar power generators that can be mounted on rooftops around the world,” Fukuda says.
Japan also aims to create a multilateral
fund jointly with the U.S. and U.K. to mitigate changes in the earth’s climate as a result of global warming. is year’s G8 summit will be held in July in Hokkaido, Japan. Fukuda, as chair of the summit, says he is resolved to work with major emitters at the meeting to set a “fair and equitable emissions target” based on a bottom-up approach that looks at sectoral energy e ciency. “We have readily available means for taking action without waiting for the agreement on a post-Kyoto framework,” Fukuda says. e Kyoto Protocol governing GHG emissions expires in 2012. Fukuda’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, announced proposals for an international emissions reduction strategy at the 2007 G8 summit, held in Germany (CW, May 30/June 6, 2007, p. 16).
Fukuda’s speech drew a varied response from Japanese scientific experts, reports say. Fukuda has been criticized for failing to provide details on plans to cut Japan’s emissions. e announcement is vague and does not outline a timeframe, nor does it state whether the emission-reduction targets will be legally binding, experts say. e European Union confirmed plans last month to cut CO emis-
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sions 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels (C W, Jan. 28, p. 8). —DEEPTI RAMESH
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Lanxess says it will relocate a rubber chemical plant from ane near Mumbai to Jhagadia in the state of Gujarat, India. Lanxess is currently constructing an ion exchange resin plant at Jhagadia, which will become Lanxess’s largest manufacturing site in India when the two projects are completed in 2010, Lanxess says. Products to be made at the relocated rubber chemical plant include the age inhibitor Vulkanox.
Lanxess is spending about €50 million ($73 million) on the two projects, of which €38 million will be for the ion exchange resin unit. Lanxess’s other manufacturing site in India is at Madurai, where the company’s Rhein Chemie subsidiary and Lanxess’s leather chemicals business have facilities. e company’s Indian headquarters will stay at ane. e projects form part of Lanxess’s previously announced plans to raise sales in Asia. —NATASHA ALPEROWICZ
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