Proudly offer the second version of green technologies comparison analysis for carbon neutrality by 2050

On October 26, 2020, the Japanese government declared its intention to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, i.e., to achieve a carbon-neutral, decarbonized society by 2050*1. While greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (hereinafter referred to as CO2), methane, dinitrogen monoxide, and chlorofluorocarbons, CO2 accounts for over 90% of the total amount*2. In this series of reports, we target CO2, and focus on technologies that aim to achieve net zero emissions by offsetting CO2 emissions with absorption amounts.

Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 in Japan calls for practical solutions (pathways) aimed at the social implementation of technologies that contribute to reducing CO2 emissions to net zero. The government plans to achieve this goal in its policies by combining various technologies related to CO2 emission reduction and CO2 absorption, but as this plan takes shape, it will be important to adjust to its progress and make steady and consistent efforts to fine tune the technological development and social implementation led by the public and private sectors.

The Deloitte Tohmatsu Group's science and technology initiative, Deloitte Tohmatsu Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as "DTST") has attempted to organize technologies that contribute to carbon neutrality by perspectives such as the potential for reducing CO2 emissions, cost for reducing CO2 emissions, and technology readiness, and to prepare a list comparing these factors (hereinafter referred to as the "list of technologies"). In this report, we feature the second prototype of the list of technologies. In the first version of the list of technologies report, we focused on the preparation methodology, such as the methodology for creating assumptions used in conducting research, and only some of the technologies were included.

In the second version of the report, we have formalized our technological research, expanded the number of included technologies to 30, and added a category for number of patents to the list of technologies. In the future, we plan to expand the list by adding more promising technologies as they emerge, and will continue to perform careful examination and periodical reviews of the data. We hope that doing so will enable this report to aid in the planning of social implementation strategies for technologies aimed at achieving carbon neutrality in Japan, as well as helping companies and local governments consider what to include in their approaches.