Messages from our Peers
WWF Japan
In 2020, all the Japanese business leaders witnessed a great shift in climate policy in two key countries, the US and Japan. There were very clear messages from both President Biden and Prime Minister Suga: carbon neutral by 2050, full stop. Subsequently, many Japanese business leaders in key sectors started to express their own companies’ carbon neutral by 2050 targets. When there is a clear political will, it is time for business leaders to respond quickly in order to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability of business into the future.
In 2021, there will be a similar scale of great shift in biodiversity policy globally.
In fact, this has already started in 2020. In September, political leaders, many of them are Prime Ministers and Presidents, participated in the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity. These political leaders representing 84 countries from all regions and the European Union, have committed to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 by signing onto the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature.
In January 2021, another major collective political will was clearly shown at the One Planet Summit for Biodiversity held in Paris. President Macron of France announced that 50 countries have joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which commits the countries to set a target of protecting at least 30% of the planet by 2030. Japan’s Minister of the Environment Koizumi also joined this coalition by sending a video message. In addition, UK and France pledged to contribute 30% of their overseas public climate funding for nature-based solutions.
What do these two major political events, which articulated global political will including that of Japan to reverse decline of biodiversity by 2030, mean for Japanese business leaders?
JBIB and its member companies have already shown leadership in commitment to one of the best practices of biodiversity conservation by adopting “Declaration of Support for Zero Deforestation” by its 45 member companies in 2018. My sincere hope is that JBIB leads the way this time too by committing itself to a new 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework collectively at an early stage as JBIB and to advocate adoption by the Japanese government and Japanese business sector as a global leader for biodiversity conservation.