“President Kaya of Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) stated, “It is extremely difficult to reduce CO2 emission by 80% as of 2050. Industrially advanced countries may well be required to reduce emissions by 50% and developing countries should be accepted to continue emissions until 2030 to 2040.”

An international symposium (meeting to report results) entitled “For Realization of Sustainable Measures against Global Warming” of the Alternative Pathways toward Sustainable development and climate stabilization (known as ALPS), a RITE’s project commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), was held in Tokyo on February 27, with about 250 participants from public offices, universities, research institutes, enterprises and other groups.

ALPS is a research project focused on how to proceed with responsive measures to mitigation or prevention of influences of global warming centered by the emission control of greenhouse gases leading to green growth as well as how to work out an effective policy for them. The research project is also collaborated with research institutes over the world including IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) of Austria which is a world-renowned institute in the research on global warming issues.

In the meeting to report results, it was particularly pointed out that the emission of greenhouse gases is still increasing over the world while the international negotiations against climate change has come to a deadlock, and that the target to control emission within 2℃ compared with the preindustrial age is so difficult practically as to need more realistic target instead.

President Yoichi Kaya of RITE said in his keynote lecture with a theme of “Long-term Target of CO2 Reduction and its Practical Feasibility” that 80% reduction of emission for developed countries is being discussed as a global target for reduction in 2050, but even 50% reduction costs $480 per ton of CO2. According to RITE’s trial calculation, a possible reduction rate can be estimated to be only 2% per year, which means that the 80% reduction is quite unrealistic and too hard to attain.

Regarding decarbonizing possibility, he took Japan for example saying, “In case Japan introduces photovoltaic generation of 5GW through year, the incremental ratio of decarbonizing rate is only 0.3% per year. Based upon no further expansion of nuclear power generation, the decarbonizing rate will be no more than 1%.　The situation must be identical among the other industrially advanced countries.” On that basis, he insisted and proposed that the emission control required to both developing and industrially advanced countries must be based on an appropriate balance between climate change effects and practical feasibility, and a policy must be made to keep constant the concentration of warming gases on a long-term basis. Toward a 50% reduction in 2050, the reduction cost in industrially advanced countries should be $140 per ton of CO2 (about 1.7% reduction per year) and about $40 in developing countries with emission increase granted as peak for the period from 2030 to 2040. Probably, it could lead to realization of an estimated accomplishment of about 10% reduction as of 2100, when a temperature rise would be settled down at somewhere about 2.5℃ compared with the preindustrial age.”