Japan pledges financial support to help ASEAN's decarbonisation
04/03/2023 03:05
By Yuka Obayashi and Katya Golubkova
TOKYO, March 4 (Reuters) - Japan's government pledged
financial and technological support to help ASEAN countries
accelerate their efforts to decarbonise their economies and
combat global climate change, its industry minister said on
Saturday.
Energy-poor Japan aims to turn into the world's leading
hydrogen economy to reduce dependence on traditional polluting
fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
As the chair of the Group of Seven nations (G7) this year,
Japan will hold a ministerial meeting on climate, energy and
environment in the city of Sapporo on April 15-16, ahead of the
main G7 summit in Hiroshima on May 19-21, to promote what it
calls realistic energy transition.
"Japan will take a lead in providing generous support in
finance, technology and personal resources to help Asia's
decarbonisation," Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a
ministerial meeting of the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC).
The AZEC was proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida last year with the aim of sharing the philosophy of
promoting decarbonisation in Asian nations and cooperating to
push forward energy transition.
At the first AZEC meeting on Saturday in Tokyo, which
ministers from several ASEAN countries and Australia are
attending, the push for collaboration will include renewable
power, natural gas, hydrogen, ammonia among others, Nishimura
said.
Japan will stress the importance of investment in gas,
liquefied natural gas as well as hydrogen and ammonia during its
presidency of the G7 this year but would keep it clean to meet
2050 carbon neutral goal, a source said this week.
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Katya Golubkova; Editing by
Himani Sarkar)
((Yuka.Obayashi@thomsonreuters.com; +813-4520-1265;))