CORRECTED - PREVIEW - Japan may meet CO2 goals, but only due to recession

(Corrects paragraph nine to make clear Japan firm is a joint venture, not a unit)

By Risa Maeda

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is expected to report as early as this week that its greenhouse gas emissions sank last year, the first year of its Kyoto Protocol obligations.

But the fall is not the good news it may appear to be, as it is mostly due to a recession that has cut the money firms have to spend on green initiatives, and also forced the government to focus more on economic stimulus than its green agenda.

This could make it harder for the world's 5th-biggest polluter to prepare for ambitious targets beyond 2012 when Kyoto's first period ends.

Preliminary government data showed carbon dioxide emissions from burning fuel fell 6.7 percent to 1.14 billion tonnes in the fiscal year to March 2009, marking the steepest fall on record as the economy shrank 3.2 percent.

CO2 created by burning fuel accounts for about 90 percent of Japan's total greenhouse gas emissions.

The figure for total emissions last year, to be announced soon, is estimated at 1.27 billion tonnes, below the record 1.37 billion tonnes of the previous year and approaching the Kyoto goal of 1.19 billion tonnes a year, given that spending on emission cuts elsewhere should offset 68 million tonnes a year.

With the Bank of Japan forecasting deflation until March 2012, a year before the country's Kyoto obligations end, there seems little risk of the country not meeting its goals.