NEAT Japan Working Group Meeting on Toward Achieving 2050 Carbon Neutrality in East Asia

Source: NEAT Philippines Secretariat taken during the opening of NEAT Japan WG meeting on Toward Achieving 2050 Carbon Neutrality in East Asia, 17 August 2021

The fifth working group (WG) of the Network of East Asian Think Tanks (NEAT) this 2021 was hosted by NEAT Japan led by the Japan Forum on International Relations (JFIR). The WG meeting was held last 17 August 2021, 1300-1650H (GMT+9) via Cisco Webex with the theme “on Toward Achieving 2050 Carbon Neutrality in East Asia“.

The objectives of this WG meeting were as follows:

·       To know how the stimulus recovery packages for COVID-19 disaster contribute to socio-economic and energy structural changes toward decarbonisation? If not, what are the challenges and how can they be overcome?; and

·       To examine how the APT countries collaborate together at the regional level to commit and achieve carbon neutrality, including mutual learning for developing strategies and roadmaps for achieving it, development and transfer of decarbonising technologies, and innovation/harmonisation of policy schemes such as mobilising finance for green recovery (i.e. for clean energy investments) and transition management (or a “just transition”) involving the private and public sectors? How can increasing geopolitical tension in the region be mitigated through such regional collaboration toward 2050 carbon neutrality?

The meeting was attended by 22 representatives from 11 APT countries. Lead representatives presented their papers on the above mentioned theme. The meeting was divided into 2 sessions.

The host of the meeting, Mr. Kikuchi Yona, welcomed the participants, and invited them for brief introduction. He then called upon Dr. Kentaro Tamura (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies Japan) to moderate the succeeding sessions.

The theme of the first session corresponds to the objective 1 of the WG. Under this session, the suggested discussion points were:

·            How can a country mobilise finance for green recovery, including national fiscal policy reforms, private financing, and utilisation of regional/international funds? and

·            What are the challenges and how can they be overcome?

These were covered by the 5 presentations of expert representatives  from Japan , Indonesia, China, Malaysia and Viet Nam.

Source: NEAT Philippines Secretariat taken during the presentation of Dr. Yosuke Arino of Japan on session 1

For the second session’s theme which is aligned with objective 2, the following are the discussion points:

·       How can APT countries mutually learn ways to develop strategies and roadmaps for achieving carbon neutrality?

·       How can APT countries collaborate for development and transfer of decarbonising technologies within the region?

·       How can APT countries promote together long-term policy schemes for transition management (or a “just transition”) involving the private and public sectors? and

·       How can increasing geopolitical tension in the region be mitigated through such regional collaboration toward 2050 carbon neutrality?

This session was composed of 6 presentations by the representatives from Japan , Singapore, Lao PDR, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia and the Philippines.

Source: NEAT Philippines Secretariat taken during the presentation of Ms. Rosellon of the Philippines on session 2

After the 2 sessions, the host synthesized the presentations and discussions from the floor. He also gave final instructions for the working group.

The results of this WG meeting will be presented to NEAT Country Coordinators meeting on 01 September 2021, and will then be submitted to the APT leaders who will meet in November 2021. For more information, you may reach NEAT Japan through Mr. Kikuchi Yona  (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

You may access the program by clicking HERE.