JAPAN’S greenhouse gas emissions reportedly rose in the fiscal year 2021, the first time in 8 years.
According to the Japanese government’s data, high energy consumption to recover from a post-COVID era is one of the main causes of the rise of greenhouse emissions.
The data is said to be 2.0 higher than the fiscal year of 2020. The national emission in the year through March tallied 1.17 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
This likely means the Paris Agreement, or the goal to keep the rise in temperature to no more than 1.5 Celsius, was not met.
Furthermore, gases absorbed by the forest are deducted from total emissions, which would total 1.12 billion tons, 2.0 higher than the prior fiscal year.
Despite being 20.3% lower than fiscal 2013’s emissions, which Japan uses as a base year, this is still far from the goal to reduce it to 46% by fiscal 2030.
On the other hand, Japan’s household sector emissions fell by 6.3%. Local reports say the decrease is mostly due to people spending less time at home with the easing of COVID restrictions.
With aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the group of seven promised after their two-day meeting in April in the country that they will speed up the process toward phasing out fossil fuels as well as expanding the use of renewable energies.
