Dear Forum Members


Today (Friday 20 Sept), large climate strikes are going on worldwide. As I write at 9 a.m. UK time, there are reports of 300,000 people on the streets in Australia (a country of about 25 million population), for example. No doubt there will be similarly large numbers in many other countries.


In Japan, on the other hand, a country of 126 million people, severely affected by the climate crisis in all sorts of ways, including more frequent and more powerful typhoons (one just this month) and heavy rain resulting in disastrous floods last year, very little seems to be happening. When I look at the Asahi Shinbun (Japanese) website, there does not seem to be any mention of climate strikes, even overseas. The same goes for the NHK top page. UK reporters also report that not much is happening in Japan.


Why not?


Just to continue the Japan-Australia comparison, both countries are liberal democracies with a highly educated population, impressive universities and scientists, and a free press, and both are being significantly affected by the climate crisis. So why the huge difference? It's not as if people in Japan are completely unaware of the issues. The term 'global warming' has been current for decades, and ordinary people I know in Japan seem quite happy to acknowledge climate change.


I would be interested to see what Forum members think.


I would also like to ask a related question about Japanese politics. I have not been following politics in Japan closely for a while (aside from watching the news for the seven months I was in Japan during 2018), but my impression is that green issues hardly feature in Japanese politics. To me, this seems quite surprising, given that (a) in some other countries, Green parties have been making significant strides - notably in Germany, where it is even reported that they are on a trajectory to displace the Social Democrats as the second largest party (b) you would think that this might be a good issue for Japan's lacklustre opposition parties to seize and try to make their own, to give them some much needed cutting edge. Is my impression about green politics in Japan wrong? If it is right, why don't green issues feature more?


I look forward to hearing your thoughts.


Peter


Peter Cave
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester
Samuel Alexander Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3195
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/