JCP study team goes to Europe to study policies combating global warming

   An 8-member Japanese Communist Party team led by JCP House of Representatives member Kasai Akira will tour European countries in March to study their efforts to prevent global warming in preparation for a party proposal on this issue, JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi said at a news conference on March 3.

Ichida said that the JCP established a global warming task force led by JCP Policy Commission chair Koike Akira and that the study tour of Europe is part of its research activity.

“The pressing task is, both in Japan and internationally, to find ways to ensure the survival of humankind by resolving the issue of global warming,” Ichida said.

   Noting that the year 2008 is the first-year of implementing the Kyoto Protocol and that Japan will host the G-8 Toyako Summit in July, Ichida said: “Japan is called upon to do all it can to fulfill its international obligation to protect the global environment as part of the post-Kyoto Protocol efforts, beginning with the 6 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions as it promised in the Kyoto Protocol.”

   In its 11-day tour of Europe starting on March 10, the JCP study team to Europe will visit Germany, Britain, and Belgium, three countries taking advanced measures.

   The JCP team will focus on the following themes: strategies, goals, and policies of national and local governments for curbing global warming; roles of business circles and their public agreements with government; citizens’ efforts to develop renewable energy sources; and the environmental tax, emissions trading, and other economic measures.

- Akahata, March 4, 2008