TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will order his ministries to draft a “Green New Deal” this week to counter the twin threats of climate change and the economic downturn, a report said Sunday.
Aso will order a stimulus package focusing on slashing greenhouse gases at a meeting of his global warming advisory panel Wednesday, the business daily Nikkei said citing unnamed government sources.
The report came as new US President Barack Obama vowed to lead the world on climate change as he set about shredding his predecessor’s global warming policies with new measures to encourage the development of fuel-efficient cars.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also called for a “Green New Deal” at a UN climate conference in Poland in December.
Japan, which has pledged to reduce carbon emissions up to 80 percent by 2050, will announce its mid-term target by June, Aso said in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.
At Wednesday’s meeting, his government will present various plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2020, the Nikkei said.
The panel will then canvass opinions from a range of people including business leaders before making formal recommendations to the premier in June, the report said.
The initiative may require a 20-fold increase in tapping solar power and a 40 percent boost in the use of next-generation environmentally friendly cars percent, it added.
Leaders of the G8 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — agreed at their summit last year to cut carbon emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050.
