Ministry of Environment to raise the JCM target
On June 15th, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) announced that it aims to achieve a cumulative reduction of 100 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2030 through the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM). MOE will add private fund businesses to the target for its realization. The total project cost by the public and private sector is estimated to be up to one trillion yen. A diversification and growing scale of the project will be promoted.
Mr. Shinjiro Koizumi, Minister of the Environment, announced this plan as “Decarbonized infrastructure initiative” at the press conference. He talked about significance of the plan by saying ”We can contribute to the expansion of the decarbonizing market in the world by the development of decarbonizing technologies in Japan”
JCM is a system which introduces energy conservation and renewable energy to partner countries and distributes CO2 reduction with both countries. 176 projects have been adopted and cumulative reduction is expected to be 17 million ton by 2030 and total project cost will be 200 to 300 billion yen. Although the initial reduction target for FY2030 was 50 to 100 million ton, JCM target was raised based on the ambitious target of greenhouse gas reduction in FY2030.
While JCM is targeted to a subsidy project of the government, MOE will also add projects only by private funds. Demands for the record of reduction in overseas projects are increasing after many private companies set greenhouse gas reduction targets. MOE is planning to prepare and indicate the guidance on the method of crediting. If a company utilize JCM for their own reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it will not be added to the national reduction amount unless giving up their rights.
MOE will broad the target area focusing on the Indo-Pacific region. JCM is in cooperation mainly with Asia and 17 developing countries such as Africa and South America. MOE is negotiating with Malaysia, Brunei and India to expand partnerships, and also making preparations with Russia to expand beyond developing countries.
A revitalization of credit trading will be expected after the agreement on the rule of market mechanism which is planned to be on the agenda of the United Nations Climate Change conference(COP26) held in November.