Press Conference by the Prime Minister regarding His Attendance at the COP26 World Leaders Summit

(Regarding the COP26 World Leaders Summit and the discussion with U.S. President Joe Biden)

Despite a very demanding schedule in recent days, I attended the COP summit meeting that was held for the first time in six years, where I had the pleasure of reuniting with many old friends, including Prime Minister Johnson of the United Kingdom and John F. Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. In the summit meeting, I conveyed to the international community Japan's strong determination to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 as well as our new initiative for Asian and global decarbonization. This was met with high acclaim from U.S. President Biden, UK Prime Minister Johnson, UN Secretary-General Guterres, and the leaders of many other countries, and I solidly demonstrated Japan's presence on the global stage. On the sidelines of the conference, I had highly fruitful exchanges of views with Prime Minister Johnson, whom I have known for years, as well as Prime Minister Chinh of Vietnam, UN Secretary-General Guterres and Prime Minister Morrison of Australia, with whom I had already established a good relationship by video conference. I also had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Modi of India, as well as the leaders of Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait. I consider my face-to-face summit-level diplomacy to have gotten off to a very positive start. As for your question about the conversation I had with President Biden, we had frank and candid discussions and confirmed that we will cooperate closely towards reinforcing the Japan-U.S. Alliance and realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific. We also agreed to meet again at the earliest possible time and set up an opportunity for more in-depth discussions.