More than 500 businesses joined Japan’s voluntary emissions trading scheme within two months of its launch, the Japanese government said before the Christmas holidays.

Tokyo pointed to power utilities’ voluntary pledge to cut their carbon by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2012 and steelmakers’ pledge to cut emissions by at least 30 percent in 10 years as early success of the scheme. The voluntary programme is meant to lay the foundations for a broader compulsory scheme once firms become used to the concept of carbon trading.

Although the number of participating companies is growing, some major firms — notably steelmaker Nippon Steel — are resisting, arguing that carbon trading is not an effective way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.