Japanese Government Delays Plans to Start Domestic Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading

摘要

Yielding to pressure from businesses, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has decided to delay plans to introduce legislation in 2011 to establish a greenhouse gas emissions trading program. Nippon Kedanren (the Japanese Business Federation) and other business lobbies had been urging the Kan government not to rush ahead with domestic emissions trading on the grounds that it could seriously damage the Japanese industry's global competitiveness. The decision was reached during a Dec. 28 meeting of Cabinet ministers in charge of climate change policy.