Regional Report to the
Management Committee
Houston
October 16, 2014
Masahiro Honda, JSIA
Contents
 Sustainability
1. Commitment to a Low Carbon Society
(The action plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
in Japan)
2. The carbon tax in Japan
 Safety Practice
・IBC Code Registration by IMO
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Sustainability
1. Commitment to a Low Carbon Society
(The action plan to reduce carbon dioxide in Japan)
Industry’s efforts on carbon dioxide emissions reduction in Japan are
aggregated and led by Keidanren.*)
*) ・Keidanren is Japan Business Federation.
・JSIA is a member of Keidanren.
(1) Outcome of the Voluntary Action Plan
Keidanren developed the Environmental Voluntary Action Plan in
June 1997. It has achieved successful results on CO2 reduction and energy
saving in accordance with the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol
from 1998 to 2012. It assured that the effectiveness and transparency of
the plan by making thorough PDCA cycle of the Voluntary Action Plan.
In the Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan by the cabinet decision,
the Voluntary Action Plan is positioned as a pillar of the measures by
industry.
.
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■Actual emission
CO2 emissions by the 34 industries in the industry and energy-conversion sectors
that participated in the Voluntary Action Plan averaged 444.47 million t-CO2 over
the five years from fiscal 2008 to 2012, a reduction of 12.1% from the fiscal 1990
level of 505.51 million t-CO2 .
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Figure 2. CO2 Emissions from Energy Consumption by Sector in Japan
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Sustainability
1. Commitment to a Low Carbon Society
(2) Promotion of the Low Carbon Society Action Plan
1) Phase Ⅰ
▪ Japan promotes global warming prevention measure by setting
medium-term targets of their own without the participation in the
second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020).
▪ In December 2009 Keidanren announced the Low Carbon Society
Action Plan (2013-2020) as a plan to follow the Voluntary Action
Plan. It will continuously further strengthen its voluntary and
aggressive measures against global warming beyond 2013.
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Sustainability
▪ Industries participated to the Low Carbon Society Action Plan
have developed the action plans based on the following four
points:
(a) establishment of CO2 emissions reduction targets for
domestic business operations up to 2020
(b) strengthened cooperation with stakeholders including
consumers and customers
(c) international contribution including technology transfer to
developing countries
(d) development of innovative technologies
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Sustainability
2) Phase Ⅱ
▪ In the international negotiations on climate change, it has
been decided, before COP21 in December 2015, to agree
on an international framework after 2020 to be applied to
all countries.
▪ Keidanren is going to study the measures against global
warming after 2020 in Japan.
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Sustainability
▪ Keidanren promotes the further expansion of efforts based on
the Low Carbon Society Action Plan in order to make greater
contribution to global warming in the long term.
▪ Keidanren sets the 2030 target besides the 2020 goal for
emissions from business activities in Japan and strengthens
its efforts as much as possible in the fields of the cooperation
between entities, international contribution and innovative
technology development.
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Sustainability
2. Carbon tax in Japan
It was decided that the Special Taxation Measures Law was revised as
a special case of taxation for global warming, petroleum and coal tax is
raised in stages.
[Exemption of petroleum and coal tax]
For imported coal to be used for private power generation supplied for
sodium hydroxide production, the coal tax is reduced to the current tax
rate from 2012 to 2016.
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Safety Practice
IBC Code Registration by IMO
 We examined the requirements of IBC code for shipping
caustic soda and hydrochloric acid defined by IMO.
 IBC will determined the required structure for a transport
ship, based on the inhalation toxicity data owned by
GESAMP. (Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of
Marine Environmental Protection)
 GESAMP shows that the inhalation toxicity of caustic soda
and hydrochloric acid are high enough to require the ships
with a two-layer structure.
 Some companies in Japan have collected new data to
prove that the two-layer structure is not needed.
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Safety Practice
IBC Code Registration by IMO
Several companies in Japan carried out an acute
inhalation toxicity study of caustic soda, and they submitted
the test data to GESAMP.
GESAMP will consider not only our acute inhalation
toxicity data, but also the data of vapor pressure of caustic
soda.
The transport ship structure of caustic soda is under
review by GESAMP.
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Thank you for your kind attention!
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