Japan 'buys' CO2 credits from Kazakhstan

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japan has agreed a deal with Kazakhstan giving it the right to emit 62,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year under an arrangement designed to help Japan meet its emission targets under the Kyoto protocol, a newspaper reported Sunday.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun daily the deal involves Japan agreeing to renovate thermal power plants in the Central Asian nation, cutting Kazakhstan's carbon dioxide emissions and effectively "buying" Japan emission credits.

In return Japan can count the reduction towards its own cuts in gas emissions under the 1997 protocol aimed at combating global warming.

The so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol allows industrialized countries to gain emission rights by helping developing countries cut their own gas emissions.

RESOURCE How it works: Global warming    WEBLINK Daily Yomiuri online

The Japanese parliament ratified the protocol last month, under which the government is committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by an average of six percent from the 1990 level between 2008 and 2012.

The Kazakhstan agreement marks Japan's first use of the CDM option.

Government sources quoted in Sunday's Yomiuri Shimbun said they planned to cover about 1.6 percent of the cuts under this method.

In order to cover this Japan needs to 'buy' credits to emit at least 19 million tons of carbon dioxide, so the Kazakhstan deal will only go a small way to cover this.

In 1990 Japan accounted for some 8.5 percent of global emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.

The United States, which alone accounted for over a third of total global emissions in 1990, has rejected the protocol altogether.

It says the pact is defective because it does not require developing nations to cut their gas emissions.