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Is Japan a Climate Leader? Synergistic Integration of the 2030 Agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Andrew DeWit
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Abstract

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In recent years, Japan has been labeled an “environmentally backward country.” Yet Japan's integration of decarbonization and all-hazard-resilience is more advanced than critics generally admit. The evidence shows that, when compared to its peer countries, Japan is achieving significant climate mitigation and adaptation via a multilevel industrial policy. Moreover, Japan's synergistic integration of mitigation and adaptation to climate is important for the 2030 Agenda, which comprises the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction. That is not to say Japan's present pace of reductions in emissions and waste, increased resilience against climate and other hazards, and performance on other metrics is sufficient to meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda. However, the evidence assessed in this paper suggests that Japan deserves closer scrutiny for potential lessons in collaborative, cost-effective and equitable mitigation and adaptation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , February 2020 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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