Tokyo Cap-and-Trade Program

Tokyo Cap-and-Trade : Japan's first mandatory emissions trading scheme. Since announcing its Tokyo Climate Change Strategy in June 2007, Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) has been examining ways to bolster the fight against global warming. Based on a year-long intensive study, the Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, submitted a bill to the second regular meeting of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in June 2008 that introduced mandatory targets for reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions for large-scale emitters as part of an emissions trading program. The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly unanimously passed the bill, thus introducing Japan's first cap-and-trade emissions trading program, to take effect in fiscal 2010. TMG has developed a cap-and-trade program that many advanced nations and regions are also moving to implement since the first introduction of such a scheme by the European Union in 2005. TMG's program is the first one to be implemented in Japan and Asia.
The Tokyo Cap-and Trade Program launched from 1st April 2010.