Japan threatens climate agreement...

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Japanese delegates informed the chairman of a special working group at the ongoing U.N. climate change conference that it would not accept the draft political agreement formally presented by the chairman.

"This draft agreement cannot be called fair, as it lacks balance between developed and developing countries," Japanese representatives stated. The draft stipulates a framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions after 2013, to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and will form the basis for upcoming negotiations at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), being held in Copenhagen.

Japan and the European Union oppose the draft, which would require only mild efforts from the United States and developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. China and other developing nations have expressed their support for the draft.

The draft calls for the extension past 2013 of the Kyoto Protocol, which required only industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Separate reduction rules would be applied to the United States, which never ratified the protocol, and developing countries, which have no obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

If Japan and the EU fail to achieve their reduction targets, heavier requirements would be imposed as punishment. However, the United States would not be subject to any punitive measures in such cases.

The draft stipulates developing countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by between 15 percent and 30 percent.

"The draft's reduction requirements for developing countries aren't sufficient," Makio Miyakawa, a councilor in the Foreign Ministry's global environment division, said at a press conference Friday night.

China has expressed tentative support for the draft, saying little time is left before the government-level conference, the last day of COP15. This is significant, as China was one of the countries that had to be coaxed to the table during negotiations on the highly successful Montreal protocol on the production of ozone depleting substances. Although China, and India, ratified in the light of financial incentives, many observers at the time felt that those countries were being set up to take the blame, should the protocol fail.

The United States feels the draft is constructive, but useful as only a basis for discussion. Full-scale talks on the draft were to start at an unofficial ministerial-level conference Saturday night.