1. German-Japanese Environment and Energy Dialogue Forum, 2007

With 125 participants - half of them Japanese - the first German-Japanese Environmental and Energy Dialogue Forum was a great success. The German and Japanese experts from politics, research and industry discussed visions for the expansion of renewable energies and presented innovative solutions for a sustainable energy supply with biomass, solar thermal energy and photovoltaics.

The "German-Japanese Environment and Energy Dialogue Forum" in Osnabrück is intended to be the prelude to an in-depth dialogue between the world's second and third largest economies on key environmental issues. The aim is not just to exchange views, but to initiate and continue cooperation and concrete projects in the scientific, technical and political fields. With regard to the solution of global environmental problems, the two leading industrial nations Japan and Germany are particularly called upon to work closely together. The reduction of energy consumption and dependence on fossil fuels as well as the realisation of an environmentally friendly and sustainable energy supply is a central future topic for the industrial nations.

Japanese industry was very well represented with Hitachi Power, Sharp, Sanyo, Kawasaki Plant and others. During the breaks, the reception in the Town Hall and the Centre for Environmental Communication, the participants took the opportunity to make valuable contacts and exchange ideas.
Both the German and the Japanese side very much welcomed the plan to hold this forum regularly on various environmentally relevant topics alternately in Germany and Japan.

The First German-Japanese Environmental Dialogue Forum was made possible by the support of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt - DBU) . On the German side, it was supported by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), on the Japanese side by the Ministry of Economics (METI), the Ministry of the Environment (MoE), the New Energy Technology Development Organization (NEDO), the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and JETRO.