Japan emissions rising after atomic crisis: report

The trend will deal a blow to Japan's target of reducing emissions by six percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Emissions by 399 leading manufacturers are projected to rise 0.2 percent year-on-year to about 388 million tonnes in the year to March 2012, the second straight annual rise, according to a Nikkei survey.

Total estimated emissions for all industries, excluding the power and gas sectors, reached 442 million tonnes, the report said, nearly equal to emissions recorded in fiscal 2010.

Japan's economic activity shrank in the wake of the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster and record flooding in Thailand, which pounded the supply chains of manufacturers with operations in the country.

But the closing of Japan's nuclear power plants sent emissions upwards as manufacturers started running their own generators to secure additional power and supply electricity to utilities, the Nikkei said.

Emissions also rose amid a jump in resources needed to produce power through other means such as thermal plants, the daily added.

The problem could get worse since Japan's nuclear plants are expected to suspend operations by April, about a year after the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, the report said.

(c) 2012 AFP