Reiterating their respective commitments to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the European Union and Japan announced the launch of a “Green Alliance” to advance the global green transition on Thursday 27 May at the EU-Japan summit (see other news).
The alliance is the first bilateral initiative of its kind between the EU and a partner country and aims to strengthen cooperation between the two sides on environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and the fight against climate change, including achieving a sustainable and secure energy supply.
“This is the EU’s first Green Alliance. It is a true milestone in our efforts to create a global coalition for net zero by the middle of the century”, said a delighted Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal.
Energy
Under the alliance, the EU and Japan “will phase out new direct government support for carbon-intensive international fossil fuel energy, except in limited circumstances at the discretion of each country”, the alliance text says.
The two sides also commit to taking “concrete steps” to end all new direct government support for international unabated thermal coal power generation without emission mitigation by the end of 2021.
They also intend to intensify their cooperation on low-carbon technologies such as renewable energy (especially offshore wind), smart grids, energy storage technologies, batteries, hydrogen (especially renewable and low-carbon hydrogen), carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies, fusion energy and nuclear safety.
The two partners intend to consider, among other things, the development of a “joint support scheme” to promote the deployment of these technologies, in particular renewable energy, in Asian and African countries.
“We will be signing a Memorandum of Cooperation on hydrogen with Japan in the second half of this year”, said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Recognising an “important role” for natural gas in the energy transition, the EU and Japan also plan to exchange analysis and expertise on decarbonisation of the gas sector and to strengthen the global drive to tackle methane emissions in the energy sector.
Environment and biodiversity
Another pillar of the alliance is the strengthening of environmental protection by promoting more sustainable and circular production and consumption practices.
To this end, the EU and Japan hope to adopt an “ambitious and realistic post-2020 global biodiversity framework” at COP15 in Kunming.
The document also underlines the commitment of both parties to take measures contributing to the global goal of protecting at least 30% of the land and sea. The parties also aim to integrate the same target into the global biodiversity framework and will lead by example by committing to the same targets at the national level as appropriate, the text adds.
In addition, the EU and Japan are discussing the possibility in the future of common standards applicable to both sides. According to the alliance text, “promising topics for discussion” include: green finance, including the taxonomy for environmentally sustainable activities, batteries, offshore wind energy, alternatives to the use of microplastics, industrial decarbonisation and hydrogen.
See the text of the Green Alliance: https://bit.ly/3fStAEw (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)