[Title] Joint Statement between the Federal Ministry for the Environment , Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan on bilateral cooperation on the dissemination of low carbon technologies towards transformation to decarbonized societies

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany

and

the Ministry of the Environment of Japan

(hereafter referred to as respectively “Side” and collectively “both Sides”),

deepen the collaboration between the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan in the field of low carbon technologies for the promotion of decarbonized societies.

Both Sides recognize that

- the Paris Agreement aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 ℃ above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels,

- G7 Leaders emphasized at the Elmau Summit in 2015 that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonization of the global economy over the course of this century, and committed to establishing a Carbon Market Platform,

- the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development holds a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets including to address climate change and to transform the energy system.

Both Sides acknowledge that both countries are responsible for leading the challenge of realizing a decarbonized society during this century by utilizing both countries’ technological capabilities, and are convinced of the benefit hereto of bilateral cooperation on the international and domestic levels.

Therefore, both Sides have come to the following recognition:

1. Both Sides intend to enhance their cooperation in the following areas:

a. Holding an annual Strategic Dialogue on the role of low carbon technologies to address domestic and global climate change including “technology transfer” to developing countries.

b. Selecting promising low carbon technologies for information exchange in the Strategic Dialogue.

c. Sharing best practices and experiences from pilot applications of the selected low carbon technologies through the Strategic Dialogue.

d. Providing support for the selected low carbon technologies by exchange of experiences about support mechanisms such as “L2-Tech JAPAN Initiative”, “Environmental Innovation Program” of Germany, “National Climate Initiative” of Germany and R&D programmes, pilot applications and financial incentives for technologies, until gaining competitiveness.

e. Information exchange on market and support mechanisms such as the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) of Japan and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of Germany to diffuse low carbon technologies in developing countries.

f. Developing roadmaps for future low carbon technologies which have not reached pilot application status.

g. Formulating the role of low carbon technologies in long-term GHG emission reduction strategies (2050) according to the respective long-term national target.

h. Exchanging knowledge on long-term scenarios for low carbon and resilient societies between research institutions of Japan and Germany.

i. Support collaborations between local governments and business operators in both countries including the use of support mechanisms such as the cooperative approaches of the Paris Agreement (Para 6.2).

2. Each Side intends to designate a coordinator responsible for the operation of this Joint Statement. The coordinators should lead, by mutual consent, an annual meeting that should take place alternately in Germany and in Japan in order to review the status of actions including cooperation of other German and Japanese institutions, define action plans and deepen the initiated cooperation. This meeting should include the Strategic Dialogue (No. 1 lit. a) as well as a joint workshop with stakeholders on selected issues. Furthermore this meeting should take place back-to- back with other German-Japanese events covering low carbon technology issues, if appropriate.

3. This Joint Statement does not affect any of the respective commitments of both Sides in treaties, conventions, memoranda, regional or international, they entered into or decided upon.

4. This Joint Statement is not intended to create any obligation or binding juridical commitment for either Side.

Signed in Tokyo on 18th May 2016 in duplicate in English.

For the Ministry of the Environment of Japan

Tamayo Marukawa

Minister of the Environment

For the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany

Barbara Hendricks

Minister for the Environment,

Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety