Photo with Ms. Kumiko Sugawara, Deputy Director of Emission Cap and Trade Section, Climate Change & Energy Division, Bureau of Environment, Ms. Yumiko Sato, Senior Staff member, Mr. Masayuki Aoki, International Relations, Policy Planning, Bureau of Environment.
On November 5th I met in Tokyo with senior staff representatives of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) in charge of the Tokyo Carbon Market also known as Cap & Trade (C&T). Tokyo Cap & Trade is the world's first urban program to cover office buildings. In total, 1200 facilities participate to this program, including 1000 commercial and institutional buildings and 200 industrial facilities. The covered gas is CO2. At the end of FY 2016, the C&T program achieved a 26 % reduction (compared to base year) even amid an increase of total floor area or covered facilities. As of September 2018, 10,409,050 carbon credit units were issued. Overall, the credit units supply exceed demands which is a positive sign showing high level of commitment and compliance from participating entities to the C&T program. Tokyo C&T is linked with another Japanese city C&T program, Saitama. There were 6 cases where Saitama credits was used to fulfil obligations in Tokyo totaling 674,408 t-CO2. The current price of excess emission reductions and renewable energy credits are Japanese Yen 9,600 and 650.
During our meeting we presented our on-going research on exploring possible links between innovations in climate change and carbon markets of California, Tokyo, EU and China. How carbon markets could affect the rate and direction of innovations in Climate Change of companies which participate to them? We received positive support and strong interests from TMG and we will cooperate with them in conducting our research on Japan.