Tokyo, 9 October 2019: At a specially convened Green Innovation Summit in Tokyo today, Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), presented the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, with a message from leaders of three landmark events taking place in Tokyo this week, each of which brought together a broad range of international stakeholders to advance key discussions around the transition to a low-carbon society.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Abe, Tokyo played host this week to the TCFD Summit, the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF) and the Research & Development 20 for clean energy technologies Forum (RD20), all of which sought to make progress on the realization of a “virtuous cycle of environment and growth”, a concept pioneered by Japan in its capacity as the current Chair of the G20.
Nobuo Tanaka, Chair of ICEF, Ryoji Chubachi, Chair of the RD20 Forum, and Peter Bakker as Co-organizer of the TCFD summit signed a joint message committing to further endeavors to promote international research and development projects to accelerate disruptive low carbon technological innovations, and to support climate-related financial disclosure and the scaling of financial mechanisms which encourage companies to consider climate change not only as a risk but also as an opportunity.
Peter Bakker presented Prime Minister Abe with this message during a specially convened Green Innovation Summit which gave participants in these events the opportunity to exchange perspectives and conclusions.
Bakker also had the opportunity to deliver a brief statement to the Prime Minister, during which he summarized some of the key takeaways from the TCFD Summit. In particular, he emphasized: “Consistent, comparable and reliable information will improve how climate-related risks are assessed, priced and managed. This, in turn, will allow companies to more effectively measure and evaluate their risks and act on opportunities, and investors to make informed capital allocation decisions.”
He also commended Japan’s leadership in this field as setting an important global standard and welcomed the efforts of the Japanese government to convene such a broad cross-section of global stakeholders and leading expertise across these three events. Bakker concluded by emphasizing “the challenges that lay ahead of us in transitioning towards a low-carbon society are considerable, but so too are the opportunities for innovation and business leadership.”.
More information
- First-ever TCFD Summit to accelerate progress on climate-related financial disclosures (WBCSD; 8 October 2019)
- Japan holds summit to accelerate climate-related corporate disclosures (Japan Times, 8 October 2019)
- Peter Bakker addresses G20 Ministerial Meeting in Japan (WBCSD, 15 June 2019)
- Contact: Lara Luten, Manager, Communication, WBCSD
