The centre-right cabinet of the world’s third largest economy has approved a bill setting “a carbon-neutral society as the final goal, and seek[ing] to realise it at the earliest possible time in the latter half of this century”. 

The strategy builds upon a 2016 pledge to slash emissions by 80 percent by 2050 on the base of 2010 levels, and sets out to innovate in areas such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture and utilization.

It commits to commercializing carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology by 2023, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) used in coal-fired power generation by 2030. It also aims to slash production costs of hydrogen to less than one-tenth by 2050.

Disruptive innovation

But the plan was criticised for not tackling the country’s coal dependency. The fuel powered 33 percent of the country’s electricity in 2015, according to data from the World Bank, while Japanese banks and development agencies are financing coal-fired power plants from Vietnam to Indonesia.

In Japan, 30 new coal-fired power plants are either at the stage of planning or construction.

Green groups said the legislation was unambitious. Yuri Okubo, a senior researcher at the Renewable Energy Institute, said that so-called “‘disruptive innovation’ [is] often used as an excuse to avoid the implementation of reduction measures by technologies that can be used immediately,”  

Okubo warned that Japan risked becoming a “CCS, CCU, and hydrogen society. If Japan still aims to [receive] a quarter of its power source from coal by 2030 and does not revise its low renewable energy target, Japan will not be seen as taking a serious stance on tackling climate change” .

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Natalie Sauer reports for Climate Home News. She has contributed to a variety of international outlets, including Politico Europe, AFP and The Ecologist. This article was first published on Climate Home.