The process for reviewing the targets of parties to the Paris climate change agreement for curbing their emission of global warming gases has gotten underway during working-level talks in Germany. The 2015 Paris agreement set a goal of keeping the postindustrial rise in average global temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius to avert catastrophic consequences from climate change. The problem is that the combined voluntary plans to cut emissions announced by countries in the lead-up to the accord will fall far short of keeping the rise in global temperatures within 2 degrees — possibly allowing the increase to reach 3 degrees.

The agreement therefore stipulates that the emissions reduction plans of each country will be regularly reviewed and updated. The working-level talks that started in Bonn this week to discuss detailed rules of implementation of the accord — which must be concluded by the COP 24 United Nations climate change conference in December in order to put the treaty in motion in 2020 — also open the discussions on reviewing the emissions reduction targets. Japan, whose efforts in combating climate change are deemed to lag behind many other advanced countries, should play a more proactive role in leading international discussions on the endeavor by making more ambitious plans for cutting its own emissions.

The Paris agreement calls for reducing to zero the net emission of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide in the latter half of this century. That will require a transition to a post-carbon society involving far-reaching changes to government policies and economic activity. A report recently compiled by a Foreign Ministry panel of experts proposed that Japan should make its initiatives for global transition to a post-carbon society a major pillar of its diplomacy — and that the nation would succeed in gaining international trust for such initiatives only when they are backed up by its own domestic efforts and achievements.