COP17, the Seventeenth Durban Climate Change Conference, was held in Durban, in the Republic of South Africa from November 28 to December 12 of last year. The regularly scheduled conference is based on an international treaty called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. At COP17 it was decided to add such gases as NF3 and HFC245fa to the gases targeted for reduction under the Revised Kyoto Protocol. All plants involved in the production and consumption of these gases must report the amount of the emission of these gases to the UN through such organizations as the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and the Ministry of the Environment.

The most important matter decided at the Durban Conference related to Japan was that Japan will not participate in the time period of 2013-2018 of Pledge 2 of the Kyoto Protocol. For the Japanese government this was a course already decided upon. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP3 in 1997. At that time, just as now, the amount of emission of global warming gas of newly emerging nations, especially of China and India, was not very much but currently the amount is rapidly increasing. The level contributed to global warming by newly emerging nations on which reduction obligations have not been imposed has risen from 20% to 50%.

In the face of all of this Japan accounts for merely 4% of the amount of global warming gas emitted. If Japan were to make a considerable effort and reach its target, this would not have any real effect at all. It would be unfair if reductions were not imposed on countries with large emissions, such as the US and China. Taking all of this into consideration, it was asserted at COP 16 held in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 that Japan would not participate in the time period of Pledge 2 of the Kyoto Protocol.

The semiconductor and LCD areas are virtually all completely equipped with waste abatement facilities

Because in this way Japan will not be participating in Pledge 2 of the Kyoto Protocol, after 2013 the reduction obligation of the Protocol will not be imposed on it. However, this does not mean that Japan has been cut off from the protocol itself. An obligation to file a report on emissions has been imposed. At the Durban Conference, 7 types of gases, NF3, HFC245fa, HFC152, HFC161, HFC236ea, HFC365mfc, and C10F18(PFC-9-1-18) have been added to the gases targeted for reduction under the Revised Kyoto Protocol.

Specifically, Japan has now become obligated to report the volume of these gases emitted in 2013 to the UN by April of 2015. For NF3, which is especially closely linked to industrial gas, the amount emitted at plants where it is produced and at plants where it is used, has to be actually measured, and reported to the United Nations. However, regarding a large number of the plants targeted for this, especially the semiconductor and LCD plants, virtually all of them are already fully equipped with waste abatement facilities. There is little need for new global warming countermeasures. There is instead a rising need for measuring equipment.

Regarding the handling of the US, Korea, Taiwan, and China, countries where large amounts of NF3 are produced and consumed just as in Japan, a spokesman from the Ministry of the Environment explained, “I think that the US, as an Addenda I Country (as developed countries, those countries which bear an obligation to reduce the emission of global warming gas) will be filling a report. However, as China, Taiwan, and Korea are not obligated to fill a report, they just might not do so.”