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2016-4-15

Japan’s National Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Fiscal Year* 2014 (Final Figures)

The Ministry of the Environment and the National Institute for Environmental Studies have released Japan’s National Greenhouse Gas Emissions (final figures1) for fiscal year (FY) 2014.
Total emissions2 in FY2014 (final figures) were 1,364 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (Mt CO2 eq.), a 3.1% decrease compared to FY2013; a 2.4% decrease compared to FY2005; and a 7.3% increase compared to FY1990.

* Japan’s fiscal year is from April 1 to March 31.
 

Under Article 4 and 12 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter, Convention) and relevant decisions adopted by the Conference of the Parties, the Annex I parties including Japan (i.e. developed countries) are required to prepare national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and submit them to the Secretariat of the Convention. Moreover, Article 7 of the Act on Promotion of Global Warming Countermeasures, which provides for domestic measures under the Convention, requires the Government of Japan to annually estimate and make public Japan’s GHG emissions and removals.

In accordance with these Articles, Japan’s GHG inventories in FY2014 were estimated.

Japan’s total GHG emissions in FY2014 were 1,364 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents (Mt CO2 eq.; the same shall apply hereafter).

This is a decrease of 3.1% (44 Mt CO2 eq.) when compared to the FY2013 emissions (1,408 Mt CO2 eq.), mainly because of the decreased energy-related CO2 emissions owing to lowered CO2 emissions from power generation, as a result of decreased electricity consumption (due to energy conservation, climate conditions, etc.) and the improvement of carbon intensity in power generation (due to greater adoption of renewable energy, fuel conversion and improvement in efficiency of thermal power generation, etc.).

This is also a decrease of 2.4% (33 Mt CO2 eq.) when compared to the FY2005 emissions (1,397 Mt CO2 eq.), mainly due to the decreased energy-related CO2 emissions in the industrial and transport sectors, despite of the increase in hydrofluorocarbon emissions from refrigerants following their substitution in place of ozone-depleting substances.

Removals by forest and other carbon sinks3 under the Kyoto Protocol in FY 2014 were 57.9 Mt CO2 eq., consisting of 49.9 Mt CO2 eq. by forest carbon sink and 8.0 Mt CO2 eq. by cropland management, grazing land management, and urban revegetation.

Footnote:

1 “Final figures” means the figures officially submitted to the Secretariat of the Convention as Japan’s GHG emissions and removals in a national GHG inventory. The final figures compiled this time will be recalculated when annual values in statistical data are updated, and/or estimation methods are revised.

2 Total emissions in FY2013:
There are some differences between the final figures compiled this time and preliminary figures released on November 26th, 2015, because some estimation methods were revised for a more accurate estimation, in accordance with the reporting guidelines on GHG emissions/removals inventories under the Convention, and some recalculation was conducted based on annual values in statistics and other data which were made available after the estimation of preliminary figures.

3 The removals by forest and other carbon sinks reported this time were estimated by calculating emissions/removals from activities under the Kyoto Protocol, in accordance with the decision of the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Kyoto Protocol.

Attached File

April 15th, 2016

Ministry of the Environment
Government of Japan

Greenhouse Gas Inventory Office of Japan
National Institute for Environmental Studies

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