Sharing Japan’s Top-level Environmental Technologies with the World
As a result of taking various environmental measures at thermal power plants, Japan has achieved the world’stop-level energy efficiency. Based on this achievement, the electric utility industry in Japan has been making efforts to establish a mechanism for sharing such advanced technologies with electric power industries in other countries (see the column).
Through the cooperation between advanced and developing countries, and with the "sectoral approaches" for sector-by-sector improvement of energy efficiency, it will be possible to achieve compatibility between economic growth and global environmental preservation. The electric utility industry of Japan has been proposing the sectoral approaches to the world as a new focus for the post-Kyoto period.
It is estimated that the introduction of Japanese technologies to coal-fired power plants in three big countries alone, namely the United States, China and India, could reduce emissions by approx. 1.3 billion tons-CO2/year, which is almost equivalent to the total annual CO2 emissions in Japan today.
Comparison of Thermal Power Plant Efficiency in Japan with Other CountriesParticipation in Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP) on Clean Development and Climate
APP is a framework for inter-regional partnership for responding to the challenges of growing energy demand, energy security, climate change, and so on. Under this framework, the seven participating countries (United States, Australia, China, India, South Korea, Japan and Canada) are pursuing the development, transfer and spread of clean and energy-efficient technologies.
CO2 emissions from the seven participating countries account for more than half of global CO2 emissions, and so these seven countries’ efforts for reducing CO2 emissions will have a global impact. Electric companies in Japan have been actively involved in these efforts.
The activities of the APP were completed by the end of April 2011, and will be taken over by the Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership (GSEP).
The Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership (GSEP)
The Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership, or GSEP (comprising sector-by-sector working groups), was inaugurated as an international initiative for promoting the industrial sector’s energy conservation and environmental responses under the leadership of the Japanese and U.S. governments in 2010, taking over achievements of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, or APP. As an organization to realize a bottom-up approach led by Japan, the GSEP is expected to develop its operations, including effective inputs into climate change negotiations, by taking advantage of government-private cooperation unique to the partnership.
