Pierre Boutier

TOKYO: About twenty middle and high school students gathered in front of the Japanese Diet (Parliament) building on Friday in Tokyo to urge the government to comply with the Paris accord by reducing carbon emissions.

The students carried signs calling on the government to take action to make the share of renewables reach 62% of Japanese energy mix by policies that encourage reduction of coal-fired power stations, the use of nuclear fuel and fossil fuels.

According to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) which is a national carbon reduction plan that has been pledged by the signatory countries of the Paris Agreement (COP24), Japan has agreed to reduce its carbon emissions but the activists and experts believe that the current target is insufficient and that it will not meet the global target of reducing carbon emissions.

Citizens’ movements asked the government to put in place policies that make it possible to achieve the final objective of zero emissions by 2050, the benchmark index of the climate action trackers.

The objective that experts advocate, and that citizen movements demand, is that before 2030 global warming is not higher than 1.5 degrees and that policies at the national level be implemented to achieve this reduction.