Japan pledges financial support to help ASEAN decarbonise (updated)
04/03/2023 05:14
(Adds hydrogen project in 11th paragraph)
By Yuka Obayashi and Katya Golubkova
TOKYO, March 4 (Reuters) - Japan pledged financial and
technological support on Saturday to help ASEAN countries
accelerate their efforts to decarbonise their economies and
combat climate change.
Energy-poor Japan hopes to become 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 Sapporo on April 15-16, ahead of the 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 the
first 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 meeting, attended by several ASEAN members and
Australia, Nishimura said the push for collaboration will
include renewable power, natural gas, hydrogen and ammonia among
other areas.
AZEC, in a joint statement, called for the group to
financially support investments into decarbonisation
infrastructure and creation of clean energy supply chains.
Neither the statement nor Nishimura provided a potential
amount of the spending.
"As many countries have expressed wishes for support from
Japan, we would like to take a strong leadership in supporting
them in technology, finance, including investment from private
sector, and human resource development," Nishimura told a
briefing.
The AZEC members - Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Japan, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam - could consider creating a master plan for hydrogen and
ammonia in Asia as a next step, he added.
As a first concrete step under the AZEC, Japanese companies,
including Iwatani Corp 8088.T and Electric Power Development
9513.T , have agreed to jointly create Japan's first hydrogen
supply chain between Australia's Victoria state and Kawasaki, an
industrialised city near Tokyo, to advance energy transition
toward a cleaner society, 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 and William Mallard)
((Yuka.Obayashi@thomsonreuters.com; +813-4520-1265;))