No. 159: The government collects emissions quotas from home to sell on the market (September 10, 2010)

The Japanese government will start the business to collect emissions quotas from home and sell them to companies in 2011. The company that purchases the household emissions quotas can regard them as the emissions that they reduced. Japan may be first to put economic value to household emissions quotas and sell them on the market. It plans to collect household emissions quotas of some 200,000 tons annually that is about 0.1% of total household emissions. The government agency in charge of this business already requested budget of about 90 billion yen. The emissions quota is scheduled to be sold at \1,000-2000 per ton. The purchase of emissions quotas is in exchange for the subsidies given to households for their purchases of photovoltaic generators and electric vehicle. The subsidies are currently about \300,000 for a standard photovoltaic generator and about 1,500,000 yen for an electric vehicle. Household fuel cell and highly-efficient water heater are also subject to this government decision.