On 21 February 2025, the AJBCC’s Clean Energy Transition Advisory Committee (CETAC) held a roundtable discussion on the pathways for Australia and Japan to develop a bilateral trading mechanism for carbon credit trading in the future.
Robyn Wheatland, General Counsel at Jera Australia and CETAC Deputy Chair, and Peter Knight, Managing Director at Real Assets Advisory & Finance, kicked off the session by providing background on the market drivers for carbon credit trading between Japan and Australia. In particular, the supply and demand dynamics that were likely to be created by the introduction of a mandatory targets scheme in Japan, and the issues of the current Joint Crediting Mechanism to provide sufficient offshore supply.
Ilona Millar, Partner at Gilbert + Tobin, followed with the main presentation on the AJBCC Draft Viewpoint in support of Australia – Japan Carbon Credit Trading. This covered the Paris Agreement Article 6 framework for bilateral and multilateral carbon credit trading, and some of the pathways that could be pursued to develop trading mechanisms between Australia and Japan.
The presentations were followed by a robust round-table discussion of the relevance of carbon credit trading amongst industry participants, and some of the issues that would need to be addressed – such as the effect of linkages on demand / supply pressures and pricing in each market.
The AJBCC’s Clean Energy Transition Advisory Committee was formed in 2021 to promote discussion of how these issues could be addressed in ways that help both countries achieve their decarbonisation goals in the most effective way possible, while ensuring that crucial energy security requirements are maintained, and the bilateral relationship is strengthened.
Since then, the AJBCC has become increasingly active in bringing members together to discuss key policy issues, with a view to exploring how we can facilitate ways forward that enhance prospects for Australia-Japan business collaboration.
This feedback received during this event will be incorporated into future work by the AJBCC on this initiative.
A special thanks to our event partners, Gilbert + Tobin, for their generous support.