The Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, co-hosted a symposium on Net-Zero and Just Transition in Asia on March 6, 2026, together with the Team Sustainability Transition Research Asia (STRA), Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), and the Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies (SEEPS). It was held at the IGES headquarters and online as part of the SEEPS’ 30th anniversary.
This symposium aims to discuss international unjust transitions in the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Deepening the transitions has gone beyond domestic impacts to affect international justice through international supply chains, GHG emissions in other countries, and national energy security. Against this drop, this symposium focuses on international justice in net-zero transitions.
This symposium consists of two sessions. The first session addresses the just implications of net-zero transmission in China, which has rapidly deployed renewable energy and battery electric vehicles. After Dr. Akihisa Mori’s keynote address on Team STRA’s ten years of research progress and ongoing research, Dr. Nobuhiro Horii presents how China has implemented policy measures to minimize stranded assets and social implications domestically. Subsequently, Prof. Kiyoshi Fujikawa and Prof. Hikari Ban present their recent research on carbon leakage associated with changes in China’s power generation energy mix, and Dr. Jiayang Wang and Prof. Takatoshi Watanabe present their research on domestic and international economic and carbon emission impacts of China’s energy and mobility transitions.
The second session discusses how to address unjust international transitions from the perspectives of international supply chain, climate security, and transformative finance. Dr. Nuki Agya Utama, Director of the Asia Zero Emission Center, provides a keynote speech on net-zero and just transition in Asia. Subsequently, Dr. Alexander Ryota Keeley presents implications on international supply chains with a case of the steel industry, Dr. Nandakumar Janardhanan highlights the nexus between energy transition and climate security with special focus on the Asia Pacific region, and Dr. Akihisa Mori argues for sustainable business model innovations and co-evolution between financial and energy systems for net-zero transitions.
The total number of participants is 139.
