Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya:

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, discussions are currently underway on financial support that is essential for advancing climate actions throughout the world. In order to realize the goals of "tripling global renewable energy" and "accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels," we need to break the flow of money to fossil fuels and support an accelerated citizen-led expansion of renewable energy. By doing so, and only by doing so, can we achieve the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement and open the door to a fair and sustainable future.

Unfortunately, Japan is one of the world's leading countries in the use of international public funds for fossil fuel projects¹ that cause not only the climate crisis but also the destruction of nature and human rights abuses². Japan has been strongly criticized for providing financial support for projects that would increase rather than reduce CO2 emissions, the leading cause of climate change: the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh and the expansion of an airport in Egypt, and for reporting these as "climate finance contributions" in its track record.

Japan-funded fossil projects have caused human rights abuse on the ground and local pollution in the area in the Global South. The policy of promoting unrealistic and costly technologies that will not be ready for decarbonization by 2030, such as ammonia co-firing in coal-fired power generation and nuclear power, is rather seen as greenwashing that prolongs our dependence on fossil fuels.

Now is the time for Japan, the world's economic superpower, to redirect its full financial support to fair, safe, and affordable renewable energy and energy conservation, not fossil fuels or greenwash technologies. This will be the force that contributes to a global agreement on a new long-term climate finance goal.

Specifically, we request the following actions:

1. The Japanese government should contribute to the agreement on the post-2025 long-term climate finance goal (NCQG: New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance) by announcing the amount of its contribution to the new climate finance.
2. In contributing to the new climate finance, the Japanese government must stop funding fossil fuel projects that include fossil gas and greenwashing technologies that conserve fossil fuels, such as ammonia co-firing, carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS), and nuclear power, and instead support local citizen-led solar and wind projects.
3. The Japanese government should expand financial support not only for carbon emission reductions but also for adaptation and addressing loss and damage.
4. The Japanese government should increase grant aid, rather than debt-financed loans, as a form of climate finance support.

Reference
[1] New climate finance commitments beyond 2025 will be agreed at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Azerbaijan in November 2024. 
[2] Oil Change International, 2023