A sense of urgency in addressing the problem of climate change is widely shared by world leaders, as shown in their recent communiqués which called for specific measures to be taken, such as promotion of renewable energy, clean energy, and improvement of energy efficiency. Among the measures proposed, Japan would like to highlight the effectiveness of improving "energy efficiency", which is a concept not yet incorporated in the previous submitted lists, including the "Friends proposal". This "energy efficiency" is directly related to the mitigation of the negative impact of climate change as referred to in the communiqués.

Today, improving energy efficiency is a shared policy goal of many governments around the world. It is a way of lowering fossil fuel dependency and reducing accompanying CO2 emissions. The IEA submitted 25 policy recommendations to the G8 countries in order to promote energy efficiency. It estimates that if all the measures are implemented, the global CO2 emissions could be reduced to 8.2 gigatonnes by 2030. This is more than the current combined energy-related CO2 emissions of Japan and the US.