GX Implementation Council

 
On August 24, 2022, Prime Minister Kishida held the second meeting of the GX (Green Transformation) Implementation Council at the Prime Minister’s Office. The Prime Minister attended the meeting by video conference from the Prime Minister’s Official Residence.
 
At the meeting, the participants discussed the rebuilding of stable energy supply for Japan.
 
Following the discussion, Prime Minister Kishida said,
 
“I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the experts for sharing your valuable opinions today. To begin with, I apologize for attending the meeting remotely.
 
The rebuilding of stable energy supply, which is a prerequisite for bringing GX into reality, was discussed today. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has totally changed the world’s energy situation and caused a major upheaval in the global energy supply-demand structure. Against this backdrop, Japan must strike a good balance between overcoming the current crisis and promoting GX, while bearing future crisis scenarios in mind. Positioning it as its highest priority issue, the Kishida Cabinet will take all possible measures in advance to minimize the impact of any contingencies in the world on the lives of people.
 
Keeping our eyes not only on the coming winter, but also on several years to come, we will mobilize every possible measure and fully prepare for unforeseen situations to get over the ongoing crisis of strained balance between supply of and demand for electricity. Regarding nuclear power plants in particular, the Government will stand at the forefront of every effort toward the restart of nuclear power stations whose installment permission has been given, in addition to ensuring the operation of ten reactors that have been brought back online.
 
Making up for the delay in energy policies is a pressing issue in implementing GX. Items requiring political decisions to expand the introduction of renewable energy were presented today, including drastically accelerating the development of power systems, speeding up the installation of fixed storage batteries, and promoting offshore wind power and other electricity sources. At the same time, items requiring future political decisions concerning nuclear power were also put forward, such as combined efforts by the concerned parties to resume operations, maximum utilization of existing nuclear power plants including the extension of their operation period with ensuring their safety being a major precondition, and development and construction of next-generation advanced reactors that incorporate new safety mechanisms.
 
These items include measures that take time to realize; however, renewable energy and nuclear power are indispensable decarbonized energy sources in advancing GX. I ask you to speed up discussions while taking the views of the ruling parties and experts into account, so that we can reach a specific conclusion on all the measures, including institutional frameworks for enhancing these energy sources to keep them as options available into the future and how the concerned parties should make efforts to further deepen public understanding, by the end of the year.
 
Depending on the situation in Ukraine and economic trends in China, the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be at risk this winter and next. I request you to swiftly embark on the creation of a supply framework between operators and Asia LNG security enhancement initiatives as well as discuss and quickly determine a scheme that can also handle emergency situations, keeping contingency cases in mind.
 
In the next meeting and onward, we will accelerate discussions toward speeding up and front-loading GX implementation, such as a basic framework of growth-oriented carbon pricing, transformation of industrial structure, and a global strategy, and formulate concrete GX and growth strategies by the end of the year.”