Japan said it will help extend the Kyoto Protocol agreement

Japan said it will help extend the Kyoto Protocol agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases after it expires in 2012, saying instead that a new global agreement is needed to combat climate change.

The Kyoto treaty is "obsolete" because it only covers 27 percent of global emissions, Kuni Shimada, special advisor to the Japanese Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto, said yesterday in an interview at United Nations talks on Climate in Cancun, Mexico.

Failure to extend the Kyoto through a deal brokered by the UN can set the second largest world market for emissions credits at risk of collapse. The organization of the Clean Development Mechanism, worth 2.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, is defined in the Kyoto agreement and the credits are generated to help polluters around the world meet emissions targets established in the 1997 treaty.

"This is firmer Japan has been," said Jake Schmidt, director of international climate policy in Washington, the Natural Resources Defense Council, in an interview in Cancun. "The fate of the Kyoto Protocol will cast a shadow on what we're trying to do here at all other building blocks of a climate agreement."

The agreement negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, binds 37 developed nations in the European community to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by a group of 5.2 percent in the five years to 2012. U.S. never ratified the treaty, developing countries like China are not included.

The operators of this year have sold in the United Nations concern Kyoto credits can not be extended.

Extending Credit Spread

Appropriations for 2012 which created the United Nations under the Clean Development Mechanism, established after the Kyoto agreement, traded at 4.25 euros (5.56 dollars) less than in the European Union program cap and trade from 30 November. That compares with a discount of 2.39 euros at the beginning of the year.

Compensation for the year 2010 gained 0.3 percent today to 11.8 euros per metric ton, compared the descent to 12.5 percent in the last three months. EU permits rose 0.1 percent to € 14.78.

The value of credits sold by investors in CDM projects, emission reduction by 59 percent last year to $ 2.7 million, according to a World Bank report.

Talks to extend the Kyoto targets for U.S. emissions and China, the largest emitter in the world, not the 2008 Summit of the UN climate protection in Poznan, Poland.

In Copenhagen last year, negotiators hoped to write a global treaty to replace Kyoto. The talks collapsed due to differences between the U.S. and China on the scale and reduction of emissions control.

"China and India want to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol is not dead, and you have Japan, Russia and Canada say no chance unless the U.S. and China are on board," Schmidt said.

U.S. is unlikely to agree to binding targets until at least 2013, and that needs a national law first, "said Shimada.

Depth Division

"Without the active participation of the two largest emitters, namely China and the United States, is a global effort," said Shimada, who was formerly Japan's top negotiator in the talks. "Whatever happens, under any conditions that do not accept a second commitment period."

The comments reflected the deep divisions that have prevented a new climate change treaty. UN officials leading the current round of negotiations are looking for other notable advances in the protection of forests, the channeling of funds to poor countries and the verification of emission reductions of guilt about damaging the Earth's atmosphere .

To agree an extension to the Kyoto Protocol is a key demand of developing countries, including China and the 43 nations of the Alliance of Small Island States. The 27-nation European Union has said it is open to a second commitment period, but also wants the U.S. action and China.

Pershing, Japan Slammed

Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation, said this week that the Obama administration is committed to reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 percent of the 15 years until 2020. He said that President Barack Obama still believes the legislation is the right approach, even after Congress this year failed to pass a law that climate change and the Obama Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives.

"We believe that may not necessarily be only a global law, but perhaps the power elements or elements of the environment in other activities we also can move in that direction," Pershing said.

Environmental and nonprofit groups ended Japan's refusal to accept a second commitment period.

"It is surprising that at a time when everyone is trying to strengthen the climate regime, Japan wants to kill the treaty that bears his name," said Mohamed Adow, climate change adviser to Christian Aid, in an emailed statement.

The collapse of CDM carbon market backed by the UN would offset the impact of the funding source for renewable energy projects in developing countries of Asia, Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank said in a press conference today in Tokyo.

"The truth is that the carbon trading market has been affected," Kuroda said. If the CDM is collapsing, "a very important pillar of the funding mechanism for the efforts of climate change mitigation in developing countries will disappear."