BloombergJapan needs to overcome what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres labeled a “coal addiction,” and the issue is causing mixed feelings among its officials attending climate change talks in Madrid this week. “In Japan, coal power is not seen as problematic as the international community sees it,” Koizumi said in Japan’s first address to the press at the gathering in years. The country is also the only economy in the G7 that is still building new coal plants. Japan currently gets about one-third of its power from coal amid public resistance to restarting the reactors. “We can’t make a declaration of phasing out of coal or fossil fuels right away,” Koizumi said.

Source: Taipei Times December 12, 2019 15:56 UTC