By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme

The Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transitions and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth was held in Karuizawa, Nagano on June 15 and 16. This Ministerial Meeting is co-chaired by Minister Yoshiaki Harada (Minister of the Environment) and Minister Hiroshige Seko, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and is co-located with high-level meetings and working group bilateral meetings.

In his opening remarks, METI Minister Seko made a remarkable speech on Energy Transition which have been the global trend in energy sector.

According to him, the Paris Agreement is a major driving force to tackle climate change across the world and it has become also a significant issue to secure affordable and stable energy for economic growth.

He further explained that Japan has just adopted the Long term Strategy under the Paris Agreement as Growth Strategy which proclaims to achieve an ambitious vision of “decarbonized society” through a virtuous cycle of innovation as an ultimate goal and aiming to accomplish it as early as possible while boldly taking measures towards the reduction of GHG emissions by 80% by 2050.

“This year, under the Japan presidency, we would like to accelerate the main themes of virtuous cycle of environment and growth driven by breakthrough innovation.

“Japan strongly supports key technologies such as Hydrogen, CCUS, in particular, carbon recycling” technology which focuses on carbon utilization I would like to work together with G20 members in an international collaboration in such an area, and promote private finance, and business environment for deployment of innovation as three pillars,” he added.

Recently, Japan launched an annual international conference, Research and Development 20 for clean energy technologies (RD20), gathering leaders from G20 leading R&D institutes to advance innovation by collecting wisdom from around the world. collecting wisdom from around the world.

In addition, Japan has also established a private led “TCFD Consortium” in May. The number of TCFD supporters in Japan is now the largest across the world. The country will hold the world’s first TCFD Summit this year. Collaborating with other initiatives such as RD20 and ICEF, Innovation for Cool Earth Forum, Japan will hold “Green Innovation Summit” this year.

Japan started a new era of “Reiwa” this May 1st which means “beautiful harmony.”