Commitments and actions of countries to combat climate change

Faced with the global climate crisis, the world is moving towards a low-carbon future. The complete decarbonization of energy systems is the only solution to stabilizing the climate. The international community is promoting the idea of decarbonization – restructuring the economy and energy system to reduce carbon emissions significantly. The world's leading emerging and developed economies (G20) – which account for about 80% of global emissions – need to take the lead in reducing2.

The current level of technology does not allow many countries to immediately abandon the use of traditional energy sources: coal, oil, natural gas. The abandonment of fossil fuels needs to be implemented in a roadmap. In addition, it is possible to increase their efficiency to reduce emissions.

Since 2017, the movement to abandon coal-fired power generation has begun to accelerate in European countries. Decisions have been made to stop producing energy from coal-fired power plants, with France abandoning them by 2022, the UK in 2024, and Italy pledging to abandon them by 2025. Germany, which is relatively dependent on coal production, has also pledged to completely eliminate this energy source by 2038. Canada has promised to do so by 2030 and the United States by 20353.

To fully decarbonize, a shift from fossil fuels to clean energy sources is required. The European Union (EU) has begun to support the adoption of new technologies, taking measures such as providing a legal framework to assess the environmental value of investments. At the same time, the “Green Deal” investment plan was announced in January 2020, aiming to invest around 130 trillion yen over the next 10 years to support the development of decarbonization technologies, generating electricity from biomass, and switching to electricity in the transport sector4.

Electricity is increasingly becoming the energy of choice in countries that are developing technology, services, and digital technologies. The United States is studying the issue of supporting the development of electric vehicles and the creation of high-voltage power grids. China identified energy-saving technologies, non-fossil energy, electric vehicles, and other areas as “strategic new industries” more than ten years ago. At the same time, China is developing overseas markets for the products of these new industries. This result has been clearly demonstrated by China's global market share in solar panels as well as wind turbines.

In Japan, Law Promoting Measures to Combat Global Warming was passed in 1998. The Act establishes certain responsibilities of the central government, local governments, businesses, and citizens on this issue. In 2011, Japan passed Law on Renewable Electricity Trading, requiring power generation companies to purchase electricity generated from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass) on a fixed-term, fixed-price contract basis. Japan has set up a 2 trillion yen fund to help reduce the cost of offshore wind, solar and hydrogen supply networks5.

In November 2023, at the COP26 Climate Change Conference in the UK, 190 countries and organizations committed to phase out coal in a roadmap. Major economies will phase out coal power by the 2030s, while the rest of the world will achieve this goal by the 2040s. “Vietnam joins a coalition of 190 countries pledging to phase out coal-fired power generation and stop building new coal-fired power plants at the COP26 conference”6.