A couple of months ago, the Japanese government washed its hands of climate change, setting a pathetic 8% reduction target for 2020 - a mere 2% advance on its existing Kyoto obligations. It was a triumph of short-sighted, selfish capitalism over sanity, a selling out of the future for the temporary ideological comfort of dead old men. But then there was an election - and now everything has changed. Japan is now offering a 25% reduction by 2020, putting it up there with the European Union as a climate change leader. And by doing so, they've knocked another support out from under our own government's pathetic 10 - 20% (if the rest of the world cuts their emissions by 30 - 40%) target. National "justified" its target on the basis that it was "in line" with those of other nations (for a certain subset of "other nations": those doing the least). But with more countries stepping up to actually do something about climate change, our own inaction becomes harder and harder to justify.
Now, if only Japan would start talking about border carbon taxes. That might produce some real change here.
