"【プレスリリース】～明日を生きるための若者気候訴訟（略称：若者気候訴訟）～ 全2国16人の若者が火力発電事業者にCO2排出削減を求めて提訴," 6 August 2024

"Unofficial Japanese-to-English translation by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre"

16 young people living all across Japan from Hokkaido to Kyushu filed a lawsuit in the Nagoya District Court against 10 thermal power generation companies, including JERA Co., Inc., seeking an injunction against CO2 emissions based on the level required by science. In order for the plaintiffs and young people across the country to survive tomorrow, the defendants, Japan's major power generation companies, must achieve decarbonisation by the 2030s in order to limit the rise in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This lawsuit demands that they at least implement the emission reductions required by science...

The CO2 emissions of Japan's power generation sector, which includes the defendants (394 million tons), are equivalent to the total emissions of the world's 16th largest country. And power generation sector is the largest emitting sector, accounting for approximately 40% of Japan's energy-related CO2 emissions...

Large emitters in the developed country like Japan are obligated to reduce emissions to this level, so this should be considered a minimum obligation for the defendants, who are power generation companies and large emitters...

The plaintiffs sued, asking the court to enforce the defendants' emissions reductions as a legal obligation and to ensure that they do so in order to protect youth from more severe impacts of climate change...