Japan’s cabinet has approved budget request guidelines for 2022, setting aside ¥4.4 trillion yen ($40 billion) for policies such as carbon reduction under Japan’s green growth strategy.
The budget request guidelines highlight Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga’s aim of promoting investment in four areas including digital, green, regional economies and childcare to support long term growth.
The budget request guidelines seek to reduce discretionary spending in areas such as education and public works by 10% from the fiscal 2021 budget to finance spending under these new categories, according to a local report.
Ministries will submit their budget requests by the end of August and negotiate with the Finance Ministry to prepare annual budget by the end of December.
John Yeap of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said: “Japan’s commitment to net zero by 2050 requires it to make meaningful investments today in its decarbonisation journey. The scale of these budget requests is significant though no doubt much remains to be done as it further develops its net zero strategy.”
According a local report, the total amount of the budget request is expected to be over ¥100tn yen ($908bn) for the eighth consecutive year.
Japan launched the green growth strategy in December 2020 aiming to lead the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a positive cycle of economic growth and the environmental protection.
Japan set it aim to become carbon-neutral by 2050, the same time scale as has been adopted by the European Union (EU). In April Japan strengthened its 2030 emissions reduction target to cut emissions by 46% by 2030 from 2013.
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