Prime Minister Naoto Kan attended the Prime Minister-Experts Open Forum on Natural Energy at the Prime Minister's Office.

Bearing in mind the requests related to the full-fledged adoption of natural energy which were received from experts, the forum was held for the influential persons to gather together and exchange views on "how to increase the adoption of natural energy moving forward." This was the first "open forum," in which the event was streamed live and questions were received through the Internet, allowing people to participate in real time.

The Prime Minister said in his opening address, "Traditionally, there were two major pillars: fossil fuels and nuclear power. However, there is also the pillar of renewable natural energy. And there is also the pillar of energy-efficiency. Further nurturing these two pillars is indeed very important for Japan's growth, and is also of course important for the Japanese society.
In my current position, I have laid out a vision for the Government to achieve at least a 20% share of natural energy at the early stage of the 2020s."