23 September 2009 by Tetsunari Iida

Japanese Prime Minister (as of September 16) Hatoyama Yukio made his September 7 post-election reaffirmation of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 relative to 1990 level emissions, Hatoyama's target will become even more formalized when he repeats it on September 22 in New York, at the UN's first ever formal meeting specifically on climate change. Hatoyama's emissions cut remains the strongest and clearest policy commitment of the new government. The DPJ seems ready to use energy and environmental policy to reshape policymaking institutions, as well as relations between elected politicians and some of the most powerful elements of the bureaucracy and business community.

And at the international level, the attentive public's response has been ecstatic. Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard, who is slated to chair the December 7-18 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, perhaps summed it up best when she declared that ''For a long time, everybody has been waiting for everybody else to move... the strong message from Japan is exactly what is needed.''

Among the first tasks of the ''dream team'' is to temporarily freeze the feed-in tariff that the former government drafted and that was to take effect on November 1 of this year. Feed-in tariffs are enormously important devices for supporting the uptake of renewable energy technology through subsidizing household and other production for the electrical grid. The tariff pays an increment above the base price of electricity to foster a market for renewable power and thus accelerate technological improvement. This scheme was adopted with incredible haste and only seven days of public comment, and sorely needs fixing.

One of the reasons for freezing the scheme is that it conflicts with the election promises of the new parties. The scheme is essentially for solar only. But the Democratic Party has promised a feed-in tariff for all renewable energy sources (i.e., solar, as well as wind, biomass, marine).

We need the dream team to put together a comprehensive feed-in tariff. It is ironic, perhaps, that I should call for a freeze of a policy I have been advocating for over a decade. But it is essential to get a real, comprehensive feed-in tariff.

For guidance regarding your posting please refer to the Forum Guidelines.

Name (required)

Email (required - not displayed)


(max 200 words)

Please enter the text you see on the left:

If you cannot read the distorted text in the box above, simply send your comment by email to daidalos@ren21.net.
 

---

Disclaimer

REN21 forums create dialogue to emphasise the importance of renewable energy and to generate discussion on how they can be promoted. While the forums benefit from the contributions of the REN21 community, the views expressed are those of the individual authors identified as the originators. They are not necessarily those of any of the other contributors, or any partner, sponsor or endorsing body of the REN21 Network.