IGES messages to AOSIS Proposal at UN
Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change
Key Messages

Developed countries and major emerging economies will need to significantly increase
ambition levels to avoid breaching the 2 degree thresholds associated with climate
change.

Japan has been a pioneer in many policy areas that could help countries stay within the
planet’s safe operating space. One such example is the energy efficiency standards known
as the Top Runner Programme. The Top Runner Programme was initiated in 1999 to push
manufacturers to meet energy efficiency standards by identifying the most efficient
products in the market at the time of standards setting and promoting the market
competition. This ensures that target values in are set at progressively more ambitious
levels.

In more recent years, Japan’s post-Fukushima energy policies have also had significant
impacts on energy consumption and production. On the consumption side, voluntary
reduction targets that were introduced to avoid shortfalls after Fukushima have led to
energy saving changes in lifestyles and business practices (such as dimming lighting at
lunch, new work schedules etc). In terms of production, Japan recently introduced a
feed-in-tariff (FIT) that has generated in increased use of renewables.

Japanese cities have also been important hubs of innovative approaches for low carbon
development. The introduction of emissions trading scheme among large commercial
buildings in metropolitan Tokyo achieved a 13% reduction in FY2010, 22% in FY2011 and
22% in FY2012 from the FY2002 to FY2007 base-year emissions. At the same time, cities
like Yokohama have considered demand response through home energy demand control.

Japan’s efforts have not only focused on mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2). Japan has long
promoted to reduce, reuse, and recycle approach (3Rs) which has helped to limit methane
(CH4) and is promoting similar approaches throughout Asia. At the city level, diesel
regulations have helped bring down black carbon emissions that are now recognized as a
short-lived climate pollutant.
Scaling-up these approaches in Japan and elsewhere,
however, will be critical to reducing existential threats to many countries making up the
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
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1. Introduction
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an international research institution
headquartered in Hayama, Japan that conducts pragmatic policy research on sustainable
development in the Asia-Pacific. Founded at the initiative of the government of Japan in 1998,
IGES has been actively engaged in climate change research for more than 15 years. Over that
period, it has witnessed measured progress in international negotiations and more significant
recent advances in mitigation and adaptation actions at the national and local levels.
Unfortunately, neither form of progress has been sufficiently ambitious to reduce the risks of
dangerous climate change. The clearest evidence of the need to enhance ambition levels is the
existential threat that climate change currently poses to countries making up the Alliance of
Small Island States (AOSIS). The purpose of this short paper is to draw upon IGES research and
experience to identify actions that can minimize that threat to AOSIS in the near term.
As suggested at the outset, there are a number of actions developed and major emerging
countries can take in the next five to ten years to avoid dangerous impacts of climate change.
Even more fortunately, many of these options have low or negative costs and could move
forward with financial investments, regulatory reforms, capacity building, and technology
transfer. In fact, many of these actions are covered in Work Stream 2 of Ad Hoc Working Group
of the Durban Platform where they may qualify for such support. However, just as
unfortunately proven mitigation and adaptation efforts often get overshadowed in
international negotiations. The first step then is to raise the profile of some of these proven
actions. The next section does so by emphasizing actions in Japan that may be replicable
elsewhere in Asia.
2. Demonstrated Actions in Japan
Japan is home to many of promising climate change actions. Improving energy efficiencies has
been one of the more recognized. But after the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan has
redoubled these efforts. Important reforms have aimed at increasing energy efficiencies in
factories, vehicles, home appliances, and office equipment and automation systems. Moving
forward it will be important to ensure that efficiencies are carried over to small and medium
sized enterprises that have less resources and weaker incentives to invest in energy savings.
Improvements in thermal insulation for housing and buildings have also been promoted as one
of the important measures to conserve energy and reduce GHGs.
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Japan has also seen a renewed interest in boosting renewable energy. The introduction of
feed-in-tariff (FIT) has, for example, brought new momentum to the manufacturers and users
of photovoltaic solar panels. A share of renewable energy (excluding large scale
hydroelectricity) in generated and received power increased by only 0.5% in ten years from
0.6% to 1.1% between 2000 and 2010. However, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the
share increased by 0.5% in only two years to 1.6%. After the implementation of FIT, by
mid-2013 the share further increased to 2.3%. While the share of renewable energy in the total
primary energy supply is a fraction and challenges regarding integration with conventional
power grids need to be resolved, the recent progress is nonetheless promising.
In terms of thermal power generation, Japan is investing in the demonstration of integrated
coal gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power generation technologies with carbon capture
and storage (CCS) capability. There is a concern over plans by Japanese utilities to build new
coal-fired plants to replace nuclear power capacity taken offline after the Fukushima accident,
though new coal-fired power plants are required to be equipped with best available
technologies (BAT)—arguably, ultra-super critical (USC) technology is expected. Against this
background, an IGCC plan with CCS capability was announced as one of the world’s first
commercial scale and is scheduled to be operationalized in 2020 (CCS facilities will be equipped
once available). While there is uncertainty in future development of CCS technologies, this
CCS-ready coal-fired plant catches wide attention. Elsewhere efforts are underway to
significantly expand capacities for combined heat and power.
Another discernible trend following efforts to deregulate the energy sectors involve the
construction of smart energy systems in cities such as Kitakyushu, Yokohama and Fujisawa. The
City of Kitakyushu with around one million population has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions
city-wide by 50% and through inter-city collaboration in Asia by 150% from the 2005 levels by
the end of 2050. The Yokohama Smart City Project has conducted a feasibility study of demand
response through home energy demand control over 1,900 family units, and is going to expand
the target family units to 4,000 this year. Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town project with 1,000
family units aims at reducing CO2 emissions by 70% from the 1990 levels. These efforts aim to
take advantage of power distribution technologies and demand response to conserve energy.
Meanwhile, at the city level, Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Saitama Prefecture have
introduced their own emission trading schemes (ETS) that has begun to put a price on carbon
in two heavily populated cities in Japan. The Tokyo Cap-and-Trade programme, which mainly
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targets large business facilities (1,500 kL oil equivalent or more annual energy usage), achieved
a 13% reduction in FY2010, 22% in FY2011 and 22% in FY2012 from the base-year emissions
(the average emissions of three consecutive fiscal years selected between FY2002 and FY2007).
Since CO2 emissions factors for electricity consumption are fixed, these reduction figures do
not reflect the reality that fossil fuel-fired power plants largely replaced nuclear power plants
that have been idling after the 2011 Fukushima accident. Nonetheless, these figures
demonstrate that a substantial decline in energy consumption in office buildings can be
possible with currently available technologies.
In the past, Tokyo has served as model for not only other cities but also national policies. An
area where local government policies became national policies is the regulation of
diesel-powered vehicles. Almost a decade ago, the Tokyo city government instituted a set of
“no diesel regulations” that encouraged comparable actions elsewhere in Japan. Though not
the intent at the time, more stringent diesel regulations actually led to significant reductions in
black carbon emissions. Black carbon is a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCPs) that is known to
destabilize climate systems while harming public health.
It nonetheless is worth underlining that, while each of the highlighted actions are individually
noteworthy, they collectively still leave the world far short of the 2 degree goals. The next
question is how countries, including Japan, can make the necessary efforts to scale up these
actions. Part of the answer will be technical in nature. For some of the highlighted actions,
there are still significant technical uncertainties—for instance, the use of CCS technologies.
However, arguably a more formidable challenge is getting national leaderships to marshal the
political will and the financial resources need to drive wider and deeper socio-economic
changes. The next section begins to reflect on how AOSIS countries might be able to make such
changes more feasible.
3. Supporting action in AOSIS
It is widely understood that the contribution that AOSIS make to climate change is negligible.
For good reason, adaptation comes before mitigation in small islands countries. At the same
time, there are important opportunities to dramatize the lack of action exhibited elsewhere.
One such approach would be for AOSIS countries pledge their intent to shift to zero or low
carbon energy sources with support from developed countries. Such a pledge would highlight
the need for greater political will to scale change in developed and major emerging countries.
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Even more relevant is the inter-city cooperation that is being promoted in the island country of
Palau where efforts are underway to expand access to low carbon energy sources. Another is a
project in the Maldives that introduces a smart grid system linking a demand-side management
system with solar PV and acid batteries.
Here too there are several notable examples of important changes. Several low-carbon actions
have, for instance, been undertaken on the island of Cebu and other islands in the Philippines
and Koh Samui in Thailand. These actions are led by international hotel chains and mayors and
suggest the possibility of linking low-carbon with international tourism may help mobilize
political and financial resources from both the private and public sectors.
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