News COP26: Kishida gets Fossil of the Day award

An international environmental organization announced on Nov. 2 that it has chosen Japan as a recipient of its "Fossil of the Day" award after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated Japan will continue to use existing thermal power plants during the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference's summit meeting the same day. The Climate Action Network (CAN), a global network of more than 1,500 environmental NGOs in over 130 countries, bestowed Japan with the prize -- given to countries and others that have maintained a negative stance toward climate control -- on the grounds that Prime Minister Kishida has announced a policy to keep thermal power by relying on unestablished technologies even while setting forth a "zero-emission" premise. It gave two other Fossil of the Day awards to Norway and Australia.

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"Furthermore, Kishida has had deluded dreams of using ammonia and hydrogen as 'zero-emission thermal power.' He needs to wake up and understand that these novice and costly technologies are linked to fossil fuel extraction and would leave little chance of meeting the global 1.5C degrees targets." The Cabinet approved a basic energy plan in October, which states that Japan will reduce the ratio of fossil fuel-based power to about 40 percent by fiscal 2030 but will keep relying on the power source into 2050.

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