According to the Public Finance for Energy Database, Japan’s finance from major government institutions for fossil fuels totaled US$5.75 billion in 2021 (Figure 1). Figure 2, which shows the amount of public money spent on fossil fuels and clean energies from 2015 to 2021, shows that Japan has spent an average of 6-7 times more...
Category: Japan News Brief and Action Alert
Current Areas Where Indigenous People in Japan Have Been Resettled Have Not Been Greatly Affected by Climate Change
The Ainu people are the only officially recognized indigenous people in Japan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2014). When we say that the Ainu are an indigenous people of Japan, we mean that Japan, as a modern nation, has exerted domination over the Ainu people and that the Japanese government bears responsibility for that domination (Kitahara...
Japan’s Agriculture Sector Contributed .47% of Global Agricultural Emissions in 2021
The third-largest economy in the world, Japan accounts for 4.1% of the global GDP (IMF, 2022). And since 2015, its GHG emissions have been steadily declining, reaching 1.21 billion tonnes of CO2e100 in 2021, or 2.2% of the world, or half of the GDP share. In 2021, the agriculture sector in Japan produced 26.8M CO2e100...
Japanese Passenger Car Electrification Rate is the Highest in the World
Japan is the world’s third largest automobile manufacturer and home to well-known car brands such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Suzuki, Daihatsu, etc. which supply a material portion of the global market share. Not only a prominent exporter of vehicles, Japan also has a huge domestic market with approximately 61.87 million passenger cars on the road...
Climate Change Loss & Damage is Critically Affecting the Agricultural sector in Japan
In recent years, the impact of the climate crisis has been evident in Japan. According to the May 2009 report, if no action is taken, Japan’s annual cost of the climate crisis could be as high as JPY17 trillion (approximately USD 124 billion) by the end of the 21st century. This economic cost includes damages...
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Poses a Challenge to Japan’s Energy Security
Due to the scarcity of domestic natural resources, the Japanese energy sector is almost completely dependent on imports, making it vulnerable to even minor changes in the global energy market. Roughly half of the Japanese crude oil imports come from Russia’s Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects, and almost all its LNG import from Russia is supplied...
Japan: Climate Progress Indicators
Almost no change in the number of coal-fired power plants; upward trend in share of renewable energy in the overall energy mix, especially solar power; an increase in the use of nuclear power. Operational coal-fired power plants In Post 49 published on April 12, 2022, the baseline for the number of coal-fired power plants...
Japan is the 2nd Largest Importer of Natural Gas
Japan has minimal natural gas production capabilities and imports approximately 95% of its natural gas. With the massive size of its economy and population of 125 million, Japan has been the largest importer of natural gas in the world until 2021 when China surpassed it after it increased its imports by 18% year on year....
Japan’s Investment in Russian Energy is Part of its Energy Import Dependence
Japan is largely dependent on imports from abroad for oil and gas. According to the Japan External Trade Organization in 2021, Russian crude oil and LNG accounted for 3.6% and 8.8% of its imports, respectively. While not nearly in the same range as the dependency of European nations on Russian fossil fuels, the amounts are...
Japan: Climate Progress Report
Indicator 1: Number of Operational Coal-fired Power Plants (Monthly) This performance indicator is a baseline indicator simply tracking the number of coal-fired power plants currently in operation in Japan. To reveal progress, the net increase and decrease of the total number of coal-fired power plants will also be given.Name: Number of operational coal-fired power plants...