[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 17 (Monday, April 30, 2007)]
[Pages 535-536]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Joint Statement by the United States of America and Japan on Energy 
Security, Clean Development, and Climate Change

April 27, 2007

    President Bush and Prime Minister Abe agreed today that confronting 
the interlinked challenges of energy security, clean development, and 
climate change requires sustained and effective global action. The 
United States and Japan are working to ensure that the energy on which 
our economies depend remains reliable, affordable, and secure by 
encouraging efficiency, diversity of supply, and advances in technology. 
At the same time our nations are making meaningful progress in 
addressing air pollution and greenhouse gases from our power and 
transportation systems. We remain committed to the ultimate objective of 
stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level 
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate 
system, and will further explore the steps forward to this objective.
    The United States and Japan are also advancing the clean energy 
technology needed to change for the better the way we power our homes, 
businesses, and automobiles. We are accelerating the development and 
deployment of these technologies by providing policy incentives to 
reduce the cost barriers to their full commercialization. We especially 
note the importance of advancing: energy efficiency and renewable 
energy, alternative and renewable fuels, hydrogen, near-zero emissions 
coal, nuclear energy, and fusion energy. We will work together to 
advance our nationally-defined objectives in these areas, taking 
advantage of a wide range of policy tools and measures including 
mandatory programs, incentives, and public-private technology 
partnerships. We will conduct a joint quantitative study on the 
economic, technological, and climate benefits of energy efficiency, in 
recognition of the trend toward national energy efficiency goals and 
programs throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

[[Page 536]]

    The United States and Japan will work constructively with our 
international partners, in particular the major energy consuming 
nations, to promote the commercialization of advanced clean energy 
technologies. In this regard, we will also use the G8, the UNFCCC, the 
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the 
International Energy Agency, APEC, the Commission of Sustainable 
Development, and other multilateral partnerships. We reaffirm the goals 
of the Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (3R) Initiative set at the G8 Summit at 
Sea Island in 2004. This includes the reduction of barriers to the 
international flow of goods and materials for recycling and 
remanufacturing, recycled and remanufactured products, and cleaner, more 
efficient technologies, consistent with existing environmental and trade 
obligations and frameworks. We also note that a report on the Gleneagles 
Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development 
will be received at the G8 summit meeting to be hosted by Japan in 2008.
    We will also endeavor under the Montreal Protocol to ensure the 
recovery of the ozone layer to pre-1980 levels by accelerating the 
phase-out of HCFCs in a way that supports energy efficiency and climate 
change objectives. We will continue to exercise leadership in the 
development of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
    The United States and Japan recognize the value of our bilateral 
High-Level Consultations on Climate Change and will enhance, strengthen, 
and streamline that dialogue. The United States will send a delegation 
of senior-level officials to Japan before the G8 Summit in June to 
discuss further implementation of this statement.

Note: An original was not available for verification of the content of 
this joint statement.