Keidanren still cool to emission goal

Japanese business leaders remained cautious Wednesday about an ambitious government proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stressing the need to build a nationwide consensus as the new industry minister urged them to join the debate.

Swimming with the sharks: Japan Business Federation Chairman Fujio Mitarai (left) and industry minister Masayuki Naoshima walk into the federation's building in Tokyo on Wednesday. KYODO PHOTO

The meeting between the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry underlined the gaps remaining over Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's pledge to cut national carbon emissions 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. But both sides agreed that the government must help strengthen Japanese corporate competitiveness.

"The business community is concerned" about the emissions target, Sadayuki Sakakibara, a vice chairman of the federation, was quoted by a Keidanren official as saying at the meeting.

To attain the goal with existing technologies is "very difficult," said Sakakibara, head of textile company Toray Industries Inc., adding it will be hard to develop new techniques by 2020.

Industry minister Masayuki Naoshima meanwhile told reporters after the meeting that he urged the business leaders to keep an open mind.

"I asked them not to oppose (the goal) from the beginning and join in the discussions," Naoshima said.

The influential lobby is widely seen as representing all business opposition to the emissions goal, which companies fear will lead to heavier costs in the name of energy-efficiency.

The goal is more ambitious than the one set by Hatoyama's predecessor, Taro Aso, whose long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party was defeated by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan in Aug. 30 general election.

Federation Chairman Fujio Mitarai said Japanese companies "need to strengthen competitiveness," and the government and industries have shared their "direction, aim, measures and strategies," a ministry official said.

Masataka Shimizu, another Keidanren vice chairman, however, was clearly unhappy.

A federation official cited the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the nation's largest utility, as telling the minister that the burdens created by the goal would be unfair.

"We want the government to consider the possible burden on the Japanese people and on the international competitiveness (of companies)" that could follow a higher emissions target, Shimizu said.

To fight global warming, "it is essential to create a fair and effective international framework," he said, hoping major emitting economies, including China and the United States, shoulder similar burdens.

Echoing his view, Naoshima ensured the business lobby at the meeting that Hatoyama committed to the target only on the premise that major emitters, including India, are part of a new deal to cut the carbon emissions to be discussed at the U.N. climate conference scheduled to take place in December in Copenhagen.

It seems like the Keidanren executives "showed understanding to some extent," the minister told reporters, although he admitted the meeting did not go into much detail.