Japan adopts green growth plan to go carbon free by 2050

[Zorro]

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

Japan aims to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles in about 15 years, the government said Friday in a plan to achieve Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s ambitious pledge to go carbon free by 2050 and generate nearly $2 trillion growth in green business and investment.

The “green growth strategy” urges utilities to bolster renewables and hydrogen while calling for auto industries to go carbon free by the mid-2030s.

Suga, in a policy speech in October, pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions in 30 years. As the world faces an environmental challenge, green investment is an opportunity for growth not a burden, he said.

The strategy, which provides a roadmap to achieving the goals in different sectors, projected 30-50% increase in electricity demand and called for a push to triple renewables in the country’s energy mix to about 50-60% from the current level, while also maximizing use of nuclear power as a stable, clean source of energy.

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/nation/story/2020-12-25/japan-adopts-green-growth-plan-to-go-carbon-free-by-2050

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This is a big deal.

[Archetypist]

1. This, IMO, is the ideal mix.

Nuclear is useful as a stable source of energy and can bridge the gap to get us off of carbon.

[diane in sf]

2. The whole country is prone to very large earthquakes and many coastal areas to tsunamis,

so keeping their nukes is not a great idea. That’s the economic imperative of the operators forcing them on the government. All the income ever generated by Fukushima, was dwarfed by the amount of damage it has and is causing. But the income was privatized and the damage socialized. My Japanese friends are not happy with the continued existence of nuclear power. The Japanese government would be wiser to be working on storage solutions for intermittent power sources and tidal generation.

[Hortensis]

6. It's not about income, it's about using a less dirty source

while creating new cleaner energy, that "bridge" mentioned.

It's about reality. If you superimpose a graph of the growth in energy supply due to technological advances over the past 250 years on a graph of the increase in population over the same period, you'll see they're practically the same lines: life depends on the amount of energy available to sustain it.

Non- decision makers can rattle on frivolous and ignorant about what it takes to keep everyone alive and their support structures viable while we transition to better, but decision makers actually have to somehow accomplish as an emergency what should have been started over 50 years ago.

Unhappy as your Japanese friends are, they're not huddling inside freezing homes with their jobs shut down, stores empty, and worrying that there won't even be food bank lines to join after the food reserves are gone. It happens many places. National support structures really can fail.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Political will can change over 30 years, but it's a good plan

and they don't have a dolt society that will resist every innovation, every scientist, and hide in religious bunkers.

[progree]

4. I find pronouncements of 2050 goals of being of absolutely zero worth

I realize there's a timeline of intermediate milestones, but I find those to be worthless too. Not just from the Japanese government, but by anyone anywhere without exception.

[ancianita]

5. If a small country can do it, so can we, with mass public commitment, untainted by fossil media PR.

We really can get to net zero carbon emissions in the same time frame.

[Hortensis]

7. Yes. I was a little surprised that they'd plan for 15 years to

replace gasoline-powered vehicles in a small nation with much better public transportation than ours. But maybe the major part of that will be accomplished in a much shorter period.

[ancianita]

8. I was, too. From what I know of their culture (kids there for 2-3 years), I'm pretty

sure rollout time is more about not interrupting services or environments, building a unified mindset about the change, and less about speed and efficiency.

[Hortensis]

9. Yup. The more the people want it, the more the progress. And vice versa.