Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) Leaders’ Joint Statement
December 18, 2023, TokyoWe, the leaders of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Lao
PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam held the Asia
Zero Emission Community (AZEC) Leaders Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on December
18, 2023.
AZEC principles
We are committed to tackling climate change as a common global challenge while
ensuring energy security and mitigating geopolitical risks, and to advancing
cooperation towards carbon neutrality/net-zero emissions, with a view toachieving the goals of holding the increase in the global average temperature towell below 2oC above pre-industrial levels, pursuing efforts to limit thetemperature increase to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels, while recalling the Paris
Agreement will be implemented to reflect the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different
national circumstances. We also emphasize that Asia, in particular the ASEAN
region, is projected to remain the engine of global economy and energy demand
growth, and we will promote decarbonization towards carbon neutrality/net-zeroemissions, while also achieving economic growth, energy security and resilience,
especially through innovation. In doing so, we share an understanding that there
are various and practical pathways towards carbon neutrality/net-zero emissions
depending on the national circumstance and different starting point of eachcountry, including, but not limited to, its industrial structures, social contexts,
geographies, and stages and rates of development, and that it is important toutilize a diverse range of energy sources and technologies to design andimplement such pathways.
We welcome the outcome of the first Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC)Ministerial Meeting held in March 2023 in Tokyo, which set out these commonunderstandings among partner countries. We will promote cooperation throughthe AZEC platform which builds on the mutual trust cultivated over the years
while sharing the above common understandings as guiding principles. We
welcome, as important steps under the AZEC platform, Japan’s continuous
commitment to Asia’s energy transitions including under the Asia Energy1

Transition Initiative (AETI), which was launched in 2021, and the outcome of 1st to
3rd Asia Green Growth Partnership Ministerial Meeting (AGGPM), and expect ourMinisters to further accelerate discussion for cooperation. We also welcome theoutcome of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change (COP28) recently held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Promoting policy support and collaboration in tangible projects
We recognize the need to take a tailored approach towards decarbonization inline with different national circumstances, including by, but not limited to,enhancing energy efficiency as “the first fuel” through technologies such as heatpumps, scaling up renewable energy, energy storage, regional interconnectivity
and improving grid flexibility, using nuclear energy including small modular andother advanced reactors for those that opt to use nuclear energy, applyinghydrogen and its derivatives including ammonia and e-methane, electrolyzer
technology, biomass and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) acrosssectors and industry, and recycling of critical minerals, while promoting
electrification, fuel switching, noting the important role that natural gas and LNG
will play as transition fuels in line with climate goals of the Paris Agreement,
deploying reliable renewable-based micro-grids including in remote islands,
perovskite solar cells, and offshore wind power, and learning experiences to solve
grid constraints, as well as decarbonizing transport sector through the spread ofactivities using multiple technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs), biofuels suchas Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), and hydrogen and its derivatives including
ammonia and e-fuels.
We invite our Ministers to work on these areas, including by sharing information
and best practices, coordinating policies where applicable, and undertaking
human resource exchange and development.
Among others, we will work together to promote innovation, support deploymentof, build robust, transparent, resilient and reliable supply chain for, and create or
expand the market for clean energy and related technologies, as well as to foster
policy development and coordination where appropriate to facilitate theirdeployment, for example by developing plans or roadmaps for energy transition
tailored to each country’s circumstance and by mutually learning andcoordinating policies, standards, frameworks and practices put in place in AZEC
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partner countries, including those to resolve grid constraints to accommodate
renewable energy, to promote the use of energy-efficient equipment and todevelop carbon/emissions-intensity based accounting methodology for hydrogenproduction. To this end, we invite the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN andEast Asia (ERIA) to set up Asia Zero Emission Center as a platform to share
information, conduct studies on policies and projects and help AZEC partners
develop vision, roadmaps or policies towards decarbonization, where applicable,to promote energy transitions.
To achieve decarbonized economic growth, we recognize the importance ofexchanging views through dialogues and explore policy options to enhancecompetitiveness and decarbonization in manufacturing industries in AZEC partnercountries, for instance by developing master plans for decarbonizing automobileindustry, as well as policies to allow industrial consumers to use decarbonized
power sources towards establishing green industrial supply chains, while
underscoring the importance of fair and sustainable business environment.
We will foster public-private partnerships and cooperation among private sectors
to accelerate energy transitions through creation of specific energy transition
projects. In this regard, we welcome activities to promote public-private
cooperation in partner countries such as those in AZEC Advocacy Group, AZEC/GX
Promotion Working Team in Viet Nam, AZEC Japan-Indonesia Joint Task Force inIndonesia and Cleaner Energy Future Initiative for ASEAN.
We affirm the importance of adequate financing to support the acceleration ofenergy transitions in the region. Recognizing the need of inclusive investment tomeet growing energy demand and to achieve economy-wide decarbonization, weemphasize the importance of transition finance, as a financial instrument toachieve the whole-of-economy transition, including the energy sector, and will
work to scale-up investment in this aspect through the AZEC platform. We
acknowledge various initiatives by both public and private sectors such as regionaland national roadmaps, taxonomies and cross-sectoral dialogues at the Asia
Transition Finance Study Group. We also recognize the importance of promotion
and implementation of high integrity carbon markets and crediting schemes, forinstance through collaboration models including, but not limited to, the Joint
Crediting Mechanism (JCM), taking into account various national circumstances.
3Fostering cooperation beyond AZEC partners
We welcome collaboration with all other countries within and beyond Asia thatwish to support our region’s energy transition and energy security. We further
recognize the importance to reach out to countries, including through existing
bilateral frameworks, with a view to cooperating in energy transition, andestablishing mutually beneficial clean energy trade markets and resilient supply
chains in the future.
We will also collaborate with relevant international organizations and institutions
such as the ERIA, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International
Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the ASEAN Center for Energy (ACE), andothers as required.

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