[Column Series] Key Issues to Address in Japan's Strategic Energy Plan (No.3) Are Japan’s Emission Reduction Efforts Really “On Track”?

in Japanese

Are Japan’s Efforts “On Track” while those of the US and Europe “Derailed"?

The material presented by the government at the Strategic Policy Committee meeting held on 15 May, which opened the discussion on the revision of Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan, began by stating that Japan’s emissions are continuing on a steady downward trend and that the nation is on track to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore, during the explanation given on the day, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) secretariat also commented on the situation in other countries in the world, stating in regard to the EU that, “Compared to Japan, efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions appear to have derailed, with progress lagging considerably.”

The statement that Japan’s emission reduction efforts are on track while those of other industrialized countries are not was also made at a joint meeting between METI and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to discuss revisions to Japan’s Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures.

There would be little argument that Japan's emissions reduction measures need to be strengthened if it is true that emissions reductions are on track. The question of whether the Japanese government’s assertion that progress is “on track,” as expressed at the outset of the revision of the Strategic Energy Plan and the Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures, is correct or not, will have a significant impact on future policy discussions. In fact, a committee member from an economic organization who participated in the joint meeting, remarked after the government’s presentation, that Japan is on track to achieve its targets and could be considered an “honors student" among developed countries.

A Discussion of the Trend in the Reductions from FY 2013 only is One-dimensional

METI and MOE provide a graph showing a linear trajectory through to FY 2050 of the reduction trend from FY 2013 to 2022 to support the claim that Japan’s progress is on track. In contrast, the graph showing European countries and the EU is presented as an extension of the reduction trend since 1990, and states that these countries' reduction efforts are no longer on track and have “derailed.” One can assume that the government’s rationale is that such a comparison is fair as the year that each country or region has set as the base year for their 2030 targets is used as the starting point in all instances.

But is it appropriate to discuss a nine-year trend from FY 2013 in the same context as the trends over the 30 years since 1990? If we attempt to plot Japan's reduction trend since 1990 in the same way as the government has presented the data for European countries, the result is shown by the purple line in Figure 1. While the red line shown in the graph represents the “on track” scenario presented by the Japanese government, the purple line shows an extrapolation of the reduction trend from 1990, in which projected emissions do not even come close to zero by 2050.

Figure 1. Comparison of CO₂ Reduction Trends

As it can be seen, the depiction of emission reduction trends can be very different depending on where the base year is set. Table 1 compares the emission reduction performance of G7 countries and the EU with base years of 1990 and 2013 (the comparison point used was 2021, when data were available for all countries). Comparing performance with 1990 levels, the United Kingdom is the biggest “honors student,” reducing its emissions by 47%, while the EU as a whole has also reduced its emissions by 29%. Japan, on the other hand, can hardly be considered an “honors student” with a reduction of only 8%. Even when comparing reductions with 2013 levels, the UK and Germany have reduced their emissions more than Japan.

Table 1. Comparison of reduction in GHG emissions of G7 and EU countries
(versus 1990 and 2013 levels)

Is it not a one-dimensional view to claim that Japan is on target to reduce its emissions to carbon neutrality by 2050 based solely on the nine-year trend from FY 2013? In particular, as we shall examine next, the reasons for Japan’s high rate of reduction in the period from FY 2013 were due to factors unique to this period, making any discussion based solely on short-term trends even more problematic.

FY 2013 was a Year of Zero Nuclear Power and Before the Growth in Renewables

In order to assess whether Japan’s emissions reductions are truly on track, it is necessary to identify what has been the driving force behind the reductions to date and analyze whether these trends are likely to continue in the future. While a detailed examination of the trends in each sector, including industry, business, transport, and households should be carried out, it should be noted here that FY 2013, the base year used by the Japanese government, was a year when Japan’s nuclear power plants were not in operation and the deployment of renewable energy sources had not yet begun in earnest, and that the emissions from electricity generation were significantly higher than in previous years.

Japan enacted new regulatory standards in July 2013 following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. In September of the same year, reactors Unit 3 and 4 of The Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi Nuclear Power Station were shut down, leaving Japan with no operating nuclear power plants and a period of almost two years without nuclear power followed. Meanwhile, although Japan’s feed-in tariff scheme for renewable electricity was launched in July 2012, full-scale implementation and expansion had not yet begun in FY 2013.

As a result, 88% of all electricity generated in FY 2013 was supplied by fossil fuels derived from coal, natural gas, and oil. The CO₂ emission factor (CO₂ emissions per kWh) from electricity generation soared from 0.413 in FY 2010, before the Great East Japan Earthquake, to 0.570 in FY 2013, with CO₂ emissions increasing by 100 million tons during this period.

The CO₂ emission factor from electricity generation subsequently improved due to the rapid growth in renewables, particularly solar PV, and to a certain extent the restart of the nation’s nuclear power plants. CO₂ emissions decreased by 281 million tons between FY 2013 and 2022, out of which more than 100 million tons of this reduction are attributable to emission factor improvements. It should be noted that the seemingly on-track reductions over the past nine years were driven by the unique circumstances of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident which caused rapid emission factor increases and subsequent improvements.

Electricity Decarbonization Efforts are at a Standstill

Decarbonization of the electricity sector is the most important policy measure to reduce future emissions, and the fact that it has accounted for a large share of emission reductions since FY 2013 is by no means a negative. The problem, however, is that the improvement in the emission factor has stagnated.

Figure 2 shows that while the emission factor decreased between FY 2013 and 2019, it has remained flat since then. As a matter of fact, there was even a slight increase between FY 2021 and 2022.

One reason for this is the slow restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants. After falling to zero in FY 2014, nuclear capacity utilization rate rose to 20.6% in FY 2019, but has fluctuated since then. The share of nuclear power in the total electricity generation has also remained at 5–6%. The government aims to make nuclear energy to account for 20–22% of the country's electricity mix by FY 2030, but in reality the restart plan is far from “on track.” In addition, the Noto Peninsula earthquake on 1 January 2024 revealed that the evacuation plans for nuclear power plants previously envisioned were not in line with reality and were inadequate. Even considering this one aspect alone, the hurdles to restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants appear to have become even greater.

Figure 2. Trends in CO₂ emissions intensity by end use

Meanwhile, the share of electricity generation from renewable energy sources doubled from 10.9% in FY 2013 to 21.7% in FY 2022, acting as a key driver of CO₂ emission reductions. One concern, however, is that the integration of solar PV, which has played a central role in the expansion of renewable energy, has come to a standstill. The trend in new solar PV installations shows that contrary to the global trend of accelerating installations, new capacity installations in Japan have declined from 8.7 GW in FY 2020 to 6.7 GW in FY 2022, and 6.2 GW in FY 2023 (all figures are on a DC basis).

While we will discuss strategies for increasing renewable power generation capacity in a separate column, it is clear that the implementation of renewables in Japan, again, cannot be considered “on track."

Coal-fired Power Phase Out are on Track in the US and Europe

At the G7 Summit held in June this year, the participant nations agreed on the goal of phasing out coal-fired power generation by 2035. Although the agreement contains language that could potentially serve as loopholes, there is great significance in the fact that developed countries have jointly recognized the need to reduce and cease coal-fired power in order to achieve reductions in CO₂ emissions in the future. In reality, other G7 countries, whose emission reductions were deemed “not on track” by the Japanese government, are actually making much steadier progress than Japan towards reducing coal-fired power.

A case in point is the UK. Figure 3 shows trends in the UK’s electricity generation by fuel type, as provided by the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Although coal-fired power generation (the area shaded in gray) accounted for 72% of total power generation in 1990, this ratio declined dramatically to just 2% in 2022. Both nuclear and gas-fired power generation have also decreased, while renewable energy sources, denoted in yellow and blue, have increased.

Figure 3.  Electricity Supplied by Fuel Type (in the UK), 1990 to 2022

In Japan, the share of coal-fired power generation has barely changed. Coal-fired power accounted for 32.9% of total electricity generation in FY 2013, and as of FY 2022 this share remains at 30.8%. While other G7 countries have set clear targets to phase out coal-fired power by 2030 or 2035, Japan is the only G7 nation that has not yet set a deadline for completing this phase-out.

Japan needs to analyze its current emission reductions in a more realistic manner and seriously consider ways to reduce emissions beyond 2030 and 2035. Presenting only short-term trends that occurred due to the extraordinary circumstances following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident and using this data to claim that Japan’s emissions reductions are “on track” and that Japan’s performance is superior to that of other developed countries, does not lead to a constructive discussion of the issues at hand.

[Special Contents] Key Issues to Address in Japan's Strategic Energy Plan