Launch of the Hokkaido-Sapporo Declaration
In connection with last weekend’s G7 climate- and energy ministerial meeting, the Hokkaido-Sapporo Declaration was launched. A declaration which paves the way for Hokkaido to become Japan’s green power house ambitiously building out renewable energy including onshore and offshore wind.
The Hokkaido-Sapporo Declaration lays out the ambitious target for Hokkaido Prefecture and Sapporo City to turn Hokkaido into a green power house powering the Zero-Carbon Hokkaido initiative and supporting Japan on its journey towards net-zero by 2050. The declaration states among other things, that Hokkaido will be supplying Hokkaido itself and the large consumption areas on Honshu based on Hokkaido’s access to abundant renewable energy and in particular offshore wind energy.
The declaration is partly inspired by the Esbjerg and Marienborg declarations and the Danish embassy has been supporting Hokkaido Prefecture and Sapporo City in the preparation of the declaration.
The declaration announcement was supported by the Japanese government who participated with state ministers from METI and MoE respectively, the G7-countries and Denmark. Ambassador Peter Taksøe-Jensen was invited to speak both at the opening ceremony of Zero-Carbon Hokkaido Exhibition and again when the Hokkaido-Sapporo Declaration was announced.
Peter Taksøe-Jensen noted that it is was a special honour as a non-G7-country to be invited to speak together with the speakers from the Japanese government and the other G7-countries.
The embassy had a booth in the exhibition area. Here we met local citizens and talked about the unique century spanning collaboration between Hokkaido and Denmark within agriculture and the upcoming collaboration on renewable energy and the bright perspectives for Hokkaido.
