Japan, the world’s sixth biggest greenhouse gas polluter, has pledged to cut emissions 26 per cent from 2013 levels by 2030, a target observers judged inadequate to avert calamitous global warming.

In order to achieve this goal, nuclear energy, deeply unpopular and offline since the 2011 tsunami-induced Fukushima disaster, must provide about 20-22 per cent of electricity production.

Renewable electricity production, including hydro power, would be expanded to 22-24 per cent of the total from 11 per cent for the year to March 2014, according to documents posted on the website of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Japan became the 19th party, including the 28-member EU bloc, to submit a carbon-cutting pledge to the United Nations ahead of a November 30-December 11 conference in Paris that must finalise a world climate pact. Greenpeace called the pledge “one of the weakest targets of any industrialised nation” – pointing out it would amount to a mere 18 per cent reduction by 2030 over Japan’s 1990 emissions.

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a 2°C pathway requires greenhouse gas cuts of 40-70 per cent by 2050 compared to levels in 2010 – and to zero or below by 2100.

MUST KNOW

1. Capital: Tokyo
2. Dialing code: +81
3. Currency: Japanese yen
4. Emperor: Akihito
5. Prime minister: Shinzō Abe