By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent NAIROBI, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Japan will meet its 2012 goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions under the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, despite a current overshoot, but opposes penalties for non-compliance, Japan's chief climate negotiator said on Monday. Speaking on the opening day of Nov. 6-17 U.N. climate talks, Yoshi Nishimura also ruled out buying "hot air" from Russia to help meet its targets. Russia has spare allowances to sell after the collapse of Soviet-era smokestack industries. "Definitely, yes," Nishimura told a news conference in Nairobi when asked if Japan would reach its Kyoto goal of cutting emissions of greenhouse gases to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Japan's emissions were 6.5 percent above 1990 levels in 2004, according to U.N. data. Japan is the world's number five emitter behind the United States, China, Russia and India. "We will adopt all sorts of measures. Don't make any mistake about our seriousness about this," he said. Still, he said that Japan opposed penalties for countries failing to comply with Kyoto's goals. Under Kyoto, the pact agreed in 1997 in the Japanese city of the same name, countries over target at the end of 2012 will have to meet more stringent cuts in a next period. "Our philosophy is to encourage (countries) to achieve rather than punish them for failure. If you apply punishment, aspiration will become smaller," he said. "We are not in favour of applying penalties." NUCLEAR He said that the bulk of Japan's cuts would be achieved via domestic actions, including raising the share of nuclear power in electricity generation. Nuclear power plants, unlike those fired by coal or oil, do not emit much greenhouse gas. "Don't worry about us going to Russia and buying their hot air," he said. "That will never happen." He said that the option of buying allowances from Russia had never even been discussed at government meetings in Tokyo. "That has definitely been excluded," he said. Russia's Kyoto goal is to ensure that its emissions in 2008-12 are no higher than 1990 levels. Russian emissions were 32 percent below 1990 levels in 2004, giving Moscow allowances to sell. Nishimura said that a next period of Kyoto beyond 2012 was likely to include cuts in overall emissions backed up by new elements, such as sectoral goals for energy-intensive industries. But he said that Tokyo wanted to see which nations would take part in a new period beyond 2012 before deciding on new commitments, which he said "may be more stringent". The United States and Australia pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing partly that caps would threaten jobs, and they have no plans to rejoin. Some European Union nations say that industrial states should cut their emissions by 60-80 percent by 2050. The Nairobi talks will try to work out ways to help Africa to adapt to climate change and bridge gaps over the future of Kyoto, meant as a first step to ward off cataclysmic climate changes ranging from droughts to rising sea levels.
