ICEF 2015 Statement from Steering Committee

Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF) held its first annual conference last year as an initiativeof Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to create an international platform that promotes innovation in
reducing climate-changing GHG emissions with the participation of governments, businesses andacademia of the world.

This year, we held the second annual conference and covered a greater

variety of topics in plenary and concurrent sessions than in the first conference and received greater
participation of over 1,000 experts from governments, businesses and academia representing
about 70 countries and regions.

We earnestly hope that countries will come to an agreement on a post-2020 internationalframework at COP21 in Paris this coming December. While we welcome the efforts by many
countries in their submissions of INDCs, it is our view that the new international framework mustbe fair, workable and effective with the involvement of all major economies. For this purpose anappropriate process to review each country’s measures and assess resulting aggregate global
emissions reductions should be created under the new framework.

In addition to the new framework to be concluded at COP21, we should also establish alonger-term global emission reduction goal for the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations inthe atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system while ensuring sustainable economic growth. In this regard, we take into account theviewpoint of the G7 Leaders’ Declaration in Germany in this year on the global goal of level oftemperature rise and long-term emissions reduction.

In order to establish the receding pathway of global GHG emissions at an accelerating rate,
significant emission reduction needs to be realized through development and deployment ofinnovative technologies. Hoping that such a view and vision will be shared by the conferences
under UNFCCC and other international conferences, we would like to particularly emphasize theimportance of following three points, among many other policies and measures, as therecommendations for this year.

1. Implementation of policies to promote research, development and dissemination of innovativetechnologies
Research and development of innovative low-carbon technologies must be pursued with along-term perspective, knowing that such endeavors rarely result in short-term profits. Private
sector is the core of such activities and their efforts and entrepreneurship are crucial for success.
1Support and funding from governments as well as collaboration and information-sharing among
private enterprises and research institutions are essential for accelerating innovation. It is
important to recognize that a regulatory environment significantly influences the course andspeed of technological innovation in the fields of energy and environment.

With theseunderstandings in mind, there should be appropriate governmental policies (such as publicfunding, regulations and green procurement) that direct both public and private investments
towards research development and dissemination of low-carbon technologies

2. Establishment of concrete action plans based on a shared vision of the future
All stakeholders should share a common vision for the promotion of low-carbon technologies.
For this reason, ICEF supports the Low Carbon Technology Partnership initiative (LCTPi 1)
launched by IEA, SDSN 2, and WBCSD 3 to realize such a vision of governments, academics,and businesses.

ICEF’s contribution to LCTPi for this year is the formulation of an innovation

roadmap for solar energy and energy storage, followed by ones for other technologies andsystems in the coming years.

We also expect governments of all major economies to develop

their action plans in line with these roadmaps.

3. Promotion of proper finance scheme for technology transfer to developing countries
We appeal to international financial organizations (GCF 4, ADB 5, World Bank, GEF6, etc.) to
expand their financing to technologies that would simultaneously achieve emission reductions
and economic development.

These entities should also prioritize their financial assistance bytaking the emission reduction potential of each project into consideration.

Moreover, we

expect the emergence of innovative and flexible private funding scheme for GHG abatement
technologies.

1LCTPi; http://lctpi.wbcsdservers.org/
Sustainable Development Solution Network
3
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
4
Green Climate Fund
5
Asian Development Bank
6
Global Environment Facility22