FILIPINO activists and advocacy groups have urged the Japanese government to "undertake drastic measures to rapidly phase out fossil fuel investments in Asia" amid its ongoing Energy Summit in Tokyo.
Ian Rivera, national coordinator of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), said the Summit “only serves to legitimize the false solutions that Japan is propagating.”
“Japan must instead increase investments in renewable energy and support the just energy transition for a more livable planet and sustainable future for all," Rivera said.
On Monday, June 3, 2024, the groups trooped to the Japanese Embassy in Manila, reminding Tokyo summit attendees that "false solutions have no place in the transition to clean energy."
"As every year we experience more extreme weather events, any industry event like this further pushes our progress back more years which we cannot afford. Solving the climate crisis requires emancipating the people to demand what is right and just,” added Flor Santos of the women's group Oriang.
A May report entitled "Strategies for Affordable and Fair Clean Energy Transitions” by the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that "clean energy technologies" like solar and wind power are "more cost competitive over their lifespans than those reliant on conventional fuels like coal, natural gas, and old.”
"In the face of the climate crisis, an industry summit celebrating and strengthening fossil fuel companies is truly reprehensible. The Japan Energy Summit does not 'accelerate the energy transition' as they claim, but further delays it,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Manila-based Asian Peoples' Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), in a statement to the media.
The groups called on Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to “stop making Asia a dumping ground of harmful and dangerous gas under the pretext of providing energy security for the region."
Citing a report from the non-profit group Oil Change International, the groups said that Japan is the world’s second-largest provider of international public finance for fossil fuels, the world’s largest provider of international public finance of fossil gas, and the No. 1 financier of international public finance for LNG export capacity. (SunStar Philippines)