Japan is considering cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by building facilities at home and overseas to capture and store carbon dioxide underground, local press reported on Tuesday.

The measure is known as CO2 capture and geological storage technology, or CCS. By using it, Japan aims to reduce CO2 emissions within the country by 200 million tons annually, a sixth of its current domestic CO2 emissions, with 100 million tons each to be disposed of in Japan and abroad respectively, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

The move comes with the background that international rules are expected to be established in the near future to count developing countries' CO2 reduction with developed countries' CCS technology help as developed nations' own reduction, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The Japanese government plans to lead the efforts of research and facility building in order to promote CCS technology as one of the main methods of reducing CO2. It also intends to cut cost of disposing of CO2 to 3,000 yen per ton.

Source: Xinhua