Reuters: Japan on Tuesday launched a voluntary carbon market based on companies’ pledged emissions cuts and hopes thousands of firms will sign up to what could become a forerunner of a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme. The scheme, once it’s up and running by next year, is expected to be the nation’s broadest emissions market. But some said the scheme still fell short of what Japan needed to make deep emissions cuts and could backfire. The trial over-the-counter market is aimed at …