Climate Change

The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP16), and the 3rd session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA3), as well as the 52nd -55th session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, were held respectively in Glasgow, UK from October 31st to November 13th. From Japan, Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio participated in the World Leaders Summit and called all Parties to take ambitious climate change countermeasures by setting the period until 2030 as the critical decade.

Minister of the Environment YAMAGUCHI Tsuyoshi also participated in ministerial meetings which were held in the second week of the conferences. In addition, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Financial Services Agency, the Forestry Agency, and the Japan Meteorological Agency participated in the conferences.

As a result of two week-long negotiations, important agenda items such as the implementation guidelines for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (market mechanisms) that have been being negotiated since COP24, the reporting formats in the enhanced transparency framework under Article 13, and common time frames reached conclusions, thereby completing “the Paris Rulebook”.

In addition, as for the “Presidency Programme” that was initiated by the UK Presidency by setting several themes, Japan shared its respective actions and signed up to a number of implementation frameworks for the climate change countermeasures.

• Key Session Outcome (PDF)

Prime Minister KISHIDA participated in the World Leaders Summit on November 2nd. The meeting was the first leaders level meeting since COP21 in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was adopted. In this summit, more than 130 leaders made speeches and announced each country’s efforts to put forward global climate change countermeasures.

Prime Minister KISHIDA called all Parties to take ambitious climate change countermeasures, recognizing the period until 2030 as the critical decade. He also shared Japan’s commitments in the field of climate change such as its updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) toward 2030, 10 billion USD additional assistance in the coming five years and doubling adaptation finance, promoting green innovation and participating in the Global Methane Pledge. These commitments announced in Prime Minister’s speech were highly appreciated and welcomed by a number of countries and organizations which participated in the summit.

Prime Minister KISHIDA also had bilateral meetings with the Secretary General of United Nations, as well as Leaders of the UK, the US, Australia, Vietnam, India, Canada, the European Commission, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyz, Ecuador, Kuwait, and Iceland.

(1) COP/CMP/CMA cover decisions

COP/CMP/CMA cover decisions were agreed upon with the contents including science, adaptation, adaptation finance, mitigation, finance, technology transfer, capacity-building for mitigation and adaptation, loss and damage, implementation, and collaboration. COP and CMA decisions called on Parties to take ambitious mitigation and adaptation actions for realizing net-zero greenhouse emissions by or around the mid-century and also towards 2030 as a way point of that goal in line with the best available science.

Throughout the negotiation on cover decisions, Japan proposed that it was necessary to call on all Parties to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ̊C as referred to in the Paris Agreement, which requires unified action by the international community and to take further actions during the critical decade until 2030, and to include language calling on Parties to communicate, as appropriate, enhanced NDCs and Long-term Strategies in line with the pursuit of efforts for 1.5 ̊C mentioned above.

(2) Article 6 (market mechanisms)

Regarding Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, issues such as the rule to prevent double-counting of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, the treatment of the activities and credits from the CDM (clean development mechanism) under the Kyoto Protocol, adaptation support through Article 6, and the methodologies to identify credits were negotiated. Japan made a significant contribution to the conclusion of the negotiation in particular by a breakthrough proposal it had made to prevent double-counting, which was reflected in the rules of Article 6. In addition, partial transition of activities and credits from CDM under the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement as well as the ways to support adaptation were decided. By the adoption of the implementation guidelines on Article 6, the Paris Rulebook was completed in its entirety.

(3) Enhanced Transparency Framework

Regarding the enhanced transparency framework, the reporting formats of national inventory reports of greenhouse gas emissions and the information necessary to track progress in line with the modalities, procedures and guidelines adopted at CMA1 were negotiated. As a result of the negotiations, it was decided that all Parties will use the common reporting tables for national inventory reports and the tabular formats which are comparable for information necessary to track progress, which is consistent with what Japan has been advocating. Parties also agreed to continue discussions on how to support reporting including through capacity building, by setting a new agenda item at the CMA4.

(4) Common Time Frames

Parties to the Paris Agreement shall communicate NDCs every five years. However, there was no provision for how many years Parties should set their target for NDCs. Therefore, it had been decided that Parties shall consider the common time frames for NDCs to be implemented after 2031. As a result of the negotiations, decision in which all Parties are encouraged to communicate in 2025 their NDCs with an end date of 2035, in 2030 their NDCs with an end date of 2040 (thereafter every five years) was adopted.

(5) Adaptation and Loss and Damage

Regarding adaptation, the issue relating to the implementation of the global goal on adaptation (GGA) was discussed and it was decided to set an agenda item dedicated to the GGA and to launch the comprehensive two-year Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on the GGA.
Regarding loss and damage, the function of the Santiago Network and financial support for technical assistance were discussed and it was decided to launch the Glasgow dialogue at the Subsidiary Body session in spring next year and to continue to discuss the issues regarding loss and damage.

(6) Climate Finance

The issues such as long-term climate finance, post-2025 new collective quantified goal on finance, Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), the Financial Mechanisms were discussed. Among these agenda items, developing country Parties criticized that developed country Parties fell short of the goal to collectively mobilize 100 billion US dollars per year by 2020. Ministerial consultations were held to address the gaps between developed and developing country Parties regarding their positions for the long-term climate finance and the post 2025 new collective quantified goal on climate finance.

As a result of the negotiations, it was agreed that the agenda item of long-term climate finance continues to be discussed until 2027 when data on climate finance provided and mobilized in 2025 will be made public. In addition, the importance of the adaptation assistance in developing countries was specifically highlighted during this session and the language that requests developed country Parties to at least double their adaptation finance by 2025 compared to 2019 levels was included in the CMA cover decision. As for setting a new collective quantified goal on climate finance, Ad Hoc Work Programme was established and consultations within the body will be held from 2022 to 2024, following the negotiations on the process of consultations on this issue.

(7) Other items

Various kinds of negotiation agenda items were discussed at COP26: including periodic review; global stock take; technology development and transfer; capacity building; agriculture; research and systematic observation; response measures; climate change and gender; and action for climate empowerment (ACE). As to ACE, the 10-year Glasgow work programme on ACE, which stipulates implementation items for education and public awareness was adopted. The election of members of the Constituted Bodies under the UNFCCC was also conducted and six Japanese members whose terms expired were reelected. Regarding COP27, it was agreed that Egypt will host the session from November 7th to 18th, 2022.
Three members of the Japanese delegation were assigned to the co-facilitators of three negotiation agenda items under COP, CMP and CMA and took a lead in their respective negotiations.

Minister of the Environment YAMAGUCHI had a total of ten bilateral meetings with the US, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Egypt, European Commission, France, India, and Singapore. In these meetings, Minister YAMAGUCHI discussed the ways to agree on each negotiation item including through Japan’s solution proposals on the implementation guidelines of Article 6, shared its measures to realize net-zero by 2050 and exchanged views on measures that should be taken during the critical decade until 2030.

Under the Presidency programme, various events were held on the following theme(s) specifically assigned to each day during the COP session: ambition; innovation; forest and land use; finance; energy; youth and public empowerment; nature; adaptation and loss and damage; gender; science; transport; and city and region.
At the ‘Accelerating Clean Technology and Deployment’ event, the Glasgow Breakthroughs Agenda was launched to present measures towards 2030 in the fields of electricity, land transport, steel, hydrogen and agriculture. Japan participated in four fields in the Agenda to which it was invited.
In the forest and land use event, Japan signed up the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land use to promote global countermeasures against decreasing forests. To this end, Japan participated in the Global Forest Finance Pledge and made a commitment to contribute approximately 240 million US Dollars, as well as participated in the COP26 Congo Basin Joint Donor Statement and the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue.
In the transport event, Japan participated in the Clydebank Declaration to support the establishment of green shipping corridors in which zero-emission ships operate and the International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition to aim for setting a long-term aspirational goal in view of the industry’s commitments towards net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, SAITO Tetsuo gave video messages to the establishment of the above two cooperative frameworks respectively.
Japan also participated in the youth and public empowerment event and shared its own activities in this regard.
In the ministerial session during the adaptation event, Japan introduced the recent submission of its adaptation communication to the UNFCCC, financial assistance and adaptation assistance as well as human resources training provided through the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Information Platform (AP-Plat).

(1) Japan Pavilion

Japan established its pavilion in the Scottish Event Campus which was the venue for COP26. During the COP session, the Japan Pavilion showcased Japanese entrepreneurs’ cutting-edge technologies for decarbonization and non-state actors’ activities (with twelve actual and thirty-three virtual displays) and conducted thirty-one in-person and virtual seminars to share related information.
These displays and seminars had two pillars of information shared on Japan’s activities: domestic measures to realize net-zero by 2050 and support for the Asia-Pacific region to transition towards decarbonization. In particular, the following domestic and international policies of Japan were shared with the participants : a vision to realize a decarbonize, climate-adaptive and circular society by promoting diverse and multilayered initiatives that are rooted in daily life and are based on "cities and regions; policies to make Fukushima a leading region which simultaneously realize both a decarbonized society and its recovery from the nuclear accident; collaboration between the government and non-state actors such as private companies, academy, NGO and youth for decarbonization; policies to expand urban and regional decarbonizing activities to the international society; and policies to formulate a regional guideline to promote greenhouse gas emissions tracking for private companies in Asia.
The event “Tokyo beyond-zero week in Glasgow” including several seminars was also held to share the importance of ensuring various pathways for energy transitions, innovation and engagement in Asia and other areas.

(2) Other side events

In the official side event “High-Level event of the Regional Climate Weeks 2021”, Japan explained the significance of the Asia-Pacific Climate Week hosted by it and its financial assistance to the world. Among others, it also highlighted the importance of Life Cycle Management Fluorocarbons including thorough the ministerial meeting of Climate & Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).