environmental coexistence, establishing dedicated lanes for bicycles and building a compact town by locating most of residences within walking distance of 15 minutes from a railway station. The project also makes use of cool air flowing from a detention pond as well as the solar central heating for a housing complex. A large-scale commercial complex at the project site has introduced high-efficiency air conditioning using city gas (the hybrid gas eco-system) and photovoltaic power generation, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% compared with conventional shopping centers.

The Koshigaya Lake Town, for its eco-friendly community-building efforts, won the project gold award of the international awards for environmentally sustainable community-building at the LivCom2009, the only international awards system in this area.

As seen above, companies’ voluntary purchases of carbon dioxide emission rights and relatively expensive green electricity and the private sector-led large-scale projects explicitly aimed at carbon dioxide emissions indicate the penetration of the significance of global warming countermeasures among people and also suggest the generation of specific methodologies for economic growth while preserving the environment at the same time.

Efforts and measures to cope with global warming are not limited to Japan alone. Besides, if solutions to global warming problems would come only at the expense of people's cultures and affluence, no countermeasures could be implemented on a sustained basis. Innovative technologies are required to take countermeasures without sacrificing the standards of living. As cited in the New Growth Strategy, Japan's environmental technologies are so excellent as to be able to contribute to reducing global carbon dioxide emissions and also prove to be the largest strength of the Japanese economy going forward.

We do not need to mention again Japan’s technological edge in hybrid vehicles, rechargeable batteries or heat pumps. Aside from these technologies, Japanese companies command a global market share of 90% for electric energy-saving displays and materials for organic EL, which is very promising as the next-generation lighting (Figure 2-4-9), and Japan also has the world's leading technologies and market shares for power semiconductor devices used in photovoltaic power generation systems and hybrid vehicles, whose market is continuing to expand at an annual rate of nearly 20%. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the New Growth Strategy has set forth the goal of reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by at least 1.3 billion tons of $ CO_{2} $ equivalent using Japanese private-sector technology. Indeed, Japan can be described as being in a good position to fully realize the “environment-led economic development.”

However, given the state of affairs in other countries and fierce international competition, it is not necessarily easy to spread Japanese products and technologies worldwide. Japan's energy-saving technologies require sophisticated knowledge about maintenance and management for their optimum operation, and some developing countries may find costs of technological transfers too high, and the adequate protection of

Figure2-4-9 Organic EL Lounge

Photo: Yamagata Promotional Organization for Industrial Technology

intellectual property rights is essential for companies' continued development efforts and diffusion of developed technologies. Therefore, for the transfer and spread of Japanese technologies, it is necessary to specify and develop technologies most suitable to the conditions of recipient countries, foster human resources to maintain and manage transferred technologies, provide appropriate financial support and improve legal systems. In order to facilitate these efforts, we should also consider ways to proceed with these efforts in "win-win" relationships with counterparty countries by effectively utilizing mechanisms for support for developing countries through the Hatoyama Initiative and by building a mechanism for appropriate evaluation of contributions by companies that offer Japan's renowned clean technologies as well as product infrastructures and production facilities.

On the other hand, Japan’s industry should not forget to lead the world in the pursuit of further sophistication of environmental technologies and take the initiative in introducing top-runner production technologies. According to a survey by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), if the thermal efficiency of Japan’s coal-fired thermal power plants is replaced by top-runner equipment, it would potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 4 million tons.

These endeavors would have to overcome difficult technological challenges, but Japan’s underlying strength certainly has that potential and Japan is being called upon to use its technological prowess to contribute to solving the problem of global warming. In the course of overcoming these challenges, it is possible that we will see the birth of “export products” that strongly power the Japanese economy going forward.