Training on the City-to-City Collaboration for Creating Low-Carbon Society (Toyama City, November 2019)

The Ministry of Environment, Japan (MOEJ) and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) organized the "Training on the City-to-City Collaboration for Creating Low-Carbon Society", from 27-29 November in Toyama City. The objective of this training was to disseminate information about and invite participants to join the City-to-City Collaboration for Creating Low-Carbon Society programme. About 30 people from local regions in Japan and abroad took part in this training (see below for details), in order to share their vision, experiences, and challenges for a low-carbon society. 

The training included lectures on the mechanisms and practical procedures of the City-to-City Collaboration for Creating Low-Carbon Society, followed by thematic sessions on “Low-carbon transportation and compact city” and “Renewable energy and urban planning”. Based on these themes, site visits in Toyama City included seeing Light Railway Transit (LRT), hydrogen gas stations, small-scale hydropower generation, and an agricultural center combined with renewable energy. 

Various creative workshops were also combined to promote proactive discussion and networking. For example, as an ice-breaker participants used diamond ranking to consider important elements for a “sustainable city”, and for the purposes of reflection they also created an imaginary low-carbon city based on the Lego serious play method.