Major Japanese firms lagging behind emissions cut target

I / Tokyo August 25, 2009, 12:12 IST

The world's largest businesses including a few from Japan are aiming to achieve only about half the recommended goal for greenhouse gas reductions, a study released today said.

The study by Britain-based Carbon Disclosure Project showed that 100 major companies, including Japan's Toyota Motor Corp and Nintendo Co, are targeting a 1.9 per cent annual reduction against the 3.9 per cent cut considered necessary to cut emissions in developed countries by 80 per cent by 2050 from the 1990 levels.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has recommended an 80 to 95 per cent cut to avoid dangerous global warming.

 

The CDP warned that the pace of emissions cuts by major companies shown in the study would see them reach the reduction levels recommended by IPCC only in 2089.  

The organisation also pointed out that a majority of the companies have yet to set targets for after the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, a global emissions framework scheduled to be replaced by a new climate protocol at a UN conference in Copenhagen in December.

The companies analysed by the CDP, a non-profit group that is made up of institutional investors and collects climate change data from the world's major corporations, also include International Business Machines Corp, Exon Mobil Corp, Boeing Co, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp and NTT Docomo Inc.