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Japan Climate Initiative Webinar Series
Challenges on Phaseout of Coal Power Generation: From Perspectives of the Policies in the UK and Japan

The G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers’ Meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, on May 26-27. A joint statement of the G7 countries released after a two-day meeting agreed on the goal of achieving predominantly decarbonised electricity sectors by 2035. They also committed to prioritizing concrete and timely steps towards the goal of an eventual phase-out of domestic unabated coal power generation.

The UK, which is leading the movement of these major countries, has set a goal of completely phase out coal power by 2024 and decarbonizing electricity centered on renewable energy by 2035. On the other hand, Japan has a policy of continuing to use coal even after 2030 by aiming for zero emissions of coal-fired power generation using hydrogen and ammonia.

In this webinar, we introduced the policies surrounding coal-fired power generation in Japan and the UK, and discussed the challenges facing coal-fired power generation and what are the paths that will enable coal phase-out.

PDF files of the speakers’ slides are available in the program below.
Recorded video is available here.

Date and Time: 4:00pm – 5:30pm JST, Friday, July 8th, 2022
Format: Online (Zoom Webinar)
Interpretation: Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation is available.
Admission: Free
Organized by Japan Climate Initiative (JCI)

Program

1. Welcome
Ken Tanaka, Climate & Energy Group Officer, WWF Japan

2. Presentation
i) Current status and challenges of Japan’s coal-fired power generation policy Slides
Yuri Okubo, Senior Researcher, Renewable Energy Institute

ii) UK Journey to phase out coal power Slides
Dr. Matthew Webb, Deputy Director for the COP26 Energy Transition Campaign, Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy, Government of the UK

3. Discussion / Q&A
Yuri Okubo, Senior Researcher, Renewable Energy Institute
Dr. Matthew Webb, Deputy Director for the COP26 Energy Transition Campaign, Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy
Kae Takase, Associate Director, CDP Worldwide-Japan  Slides
Moderator: Ken Tanaka, Climate & Energy Group Officer, WWF Japan

4. Closing

 

Speaker Profiles

 

  Dr. Matthew Webb, Deputy Director for the COP26 Energy Transition Campaign, Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy, Government of the UK

Matt Webb is Deputy Director for the COP26 Energy Transition Campaign team in the International Climate Change directorate of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Matt works in partnership with the Cabinet Office on the COP26 Energy Transition Campaign and has oversight of the Powering Past Coal Alliance launched by the UK and Canada in November 2017.
Matt was previously seconded as a Senior Associate at E3G, leading international diplomacy on the transition from coal, encouraging progressive Governments to show greater leadership internationally.
Matt has worked at a number of Government departments on a wide range of energy and climate policies since 2003, including: Department for Energy and Climate Change, on energy efficiency, heat policy and 2050 Pathways analysis; Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in support of the demonstration of Carbon Capture and Storage; Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, implementing the Near Zero Emissions Coal collaboration on CCS with China, and the Department for Transport, working on cleaner fuels and vehicles and the environmental impact of aviation.
Matt has a degree in Chemistry from Oxford University a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Cambridge University, and MBA from the Open University.

 

 

  Yuri Okubo, Senior Researcher, Renewable Energy Institute

Yuri Okubo joined the Institute in 2015 as Climate Change Policy Advisor to develop and implement the Institute’s strategy to promote renewable energy from the climate change policy perspectives.
She started her career working for a NGO (CASA) in Japan and became a research assistant at the Department of Political Science of the University of Zurich where she was engaged in research projects on climate and sustainable development which were funded by the European Parliament, the German Federal Environment Agency and UK organizations. She joined the Foundation myclimate to set up its Japanese affiliation and support the global network. She obtained a master’s degree in International Relations at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies.
At Renewable Energy Institute, she specializes on climate change policies in general and her research focuses on global and domestic coal power business policies and trends. She also takes the lead for joint studies with international organizations.

 

  Kae Takase, Associate Director, CDP Worldwide-Japan

Kae Takase received her Ph. D in environmental studies from graduate school of frontier science, University of Tokyo. She was an economist at Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, and her specialty was econometric modeling of energy supply and demand, and renewable policy. She has worked at Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, Center for Low Carbon Society Strategy, Japan Science and Technology Agency, and University of Tokyo, and also a senior manager at the CDP Japan. She has been successful in engaging Japanese companies to join Science-based Target (SBT) initiative, and in engaging government to consider better corporate renewable sourcing environment, as a technical partner of RE100.

  Ken Tanaka, Climate & Energy Group Officer, WWF Japan

Ken Tanaka works for WWF Japan and serves as the secretariat of the Japan Climate Initiative (JCI) that is co-organized with CDP Japan and Renewable Energy Institute. Before joining WWF-Japan, he worked the Fukuoka Prefectural Government and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in environmental conservation, especially in waste management and recycling including the work supporting the Japanese companies to develop overseas recycling businesses. After that, he worked as a science communicator at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and he was actively involved in a diverse of projects cooperating with overseas museums, businesses, research institutions etc. He holds a Master of Science in chemistry from Kyushu University.