TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, the world's fifth-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will target a cut in emissions by 15 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is to hold a news conference to announce Japan's greenhouse gas emissions reduction target at 6 p.m. (0900 GMT).
If Aso confirms the target, that is equivalent to a cut of 8.5 percent below Japan's 1990 emission levels to 1.154 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, not much more than the 6 percent cut Japan committed itself to under the Kyoto Protocol for the 2008-12 period.
Japan has been under huge pressure from developing nations to opt for deep emissions reductions by 2020 to ensure a strong outcome from talks on a new global climate pact at the end of the year.
U.N. climate talks in December in the Danish capital Copenhagen aim to seal a broader climate pact to replace Kyoto from 2013. Japan's choice on a target is seen as an important signal as to the level of ambition by rich nations to fight global warming.
Choosing a weak target would disappoint developing nations. It could also disappoint some voters ahead of a looming election as the opposition Democratic Party, which leads opinion polls, has said emissions cuts of 25 percent from 1990 were desirable.
A 15 percent cut from 2005 levels would be slightly more than a widely expected cut of 14 percent, which had been one of the options put forward by officials seeking to balance the need to slow climate change with the cost to Japan, which relies heavily on steel and other manufacturing industries to maintain its economy.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan has committed itself to cut emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels to 1,186 million tons on average over the 2008-2012 period, a part of which it promised to come from the purchase of carbon offsets from abroad.
But Japan has struggled to meet its Kyoto goal.
Pressed, along with other countries, to set a target beyond 2012 in global climate talks underway this year, Aso's government has been looking at six options for how to cut emissions by 2020 in Japan, ranging from minus 4 percent to minus 30 percent from 2005 levels.
Unlike the target for the Kyoto pact, the six options exclude buying of emissions offsets from abroad and are about feasible policy incentives and restrictions to cut emissions in Japan by conserving energy in households, using more low-emission cars and equipment and enhancing renewable energy sources.
The European Union has promised to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels and by 30 percent if other rich nations follow suit.
A 15 percent cut from 2005 would be slightly tougher than Europe's plan for a 14 percent cut if it were from 2005 levels.
In the United States, the only major developed nation outside Kyoto, a climate bill recently approved by a congressional panel aimed at a cut of 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota, Chisa Fujioka and Risa Maeda; Editing by David Fogarty)
