ICLEI Members’ regional decarbonization initiatives are highly rated
ICLEI members Yokohama City, Kawasaki City, Kyoto City, Kitakyushu City, and Nagano Prefecture received high ratings in the interim evaluation of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ)’ Regional Decarbonization Promotion Project.
MOEJ has set up various grants to support local governments in decarbonizing, based on the ‘Regional Decarbonization Roadmap’ and the ‘Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures’. Local governments use the grants to implement ‘Decarbonization Leading Areas‘ and priority measures projects.
The first interim evaluation results on the Decarbonization Leading Areas selected by MOEJ were published in March 2025.
Over 81 projects have been implemented through the five selection rounds for the Decarbonization Leading Areas. This interim evaluation covered 44 proposals selected in the first and second rounds. Of these, the proposals of Yokohama City, Kawasaki City, and Kyoto City were recognized as ‘selected local governments that have made particular progress in projects that support modeling and advanced development’. The proposals from Kitakyushu City and 17 cities and towns in the Kitakyushu metropolitan area were recognized as ‘selected local governments that have made particular progress in building the foundations for regional decarbonization’.
In addition, since 2022, Nagano Prefecture has been taking the lead in decarbonization by utilizing the MOEJ’s ‘Regional Decarbonization and Renewable Energy Transition Promotion Grant’, a project to accelerate priority measures. In February this year, the third year of the project, MOEJ conducted an interim evaluation, and Nagano Prefecture’s efforts to achieve the RE100 standard for its owned facilities were recognized as an excellent good practice for building a foundation for regional decarbonization.
Projects promoted by ICLEI members in Japan received high ratings in this interim evaluation, which is expected to further accelerate local government decarbonization efforts. ICLEI Japan will continue to support local governments and actively participate in concrete actions to achieve carbon neutrality.
