Japan Poised as Green Leader
TOKYO -- Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's announcement that Japan will cut carbon emissions by 60-80 per cent by 2050 sets a serious tone for the upcoming G-8 Summit at Lake Toya, Japan.
Even if real action remains stymied in the lame duck days of the Bush administration, Japan's leadership sends a signal to the world that the rich industrialized countries -- whose emissions accumulated the "stock" of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are causing global warming -- accept their responsibility. This is the precondition required for developing countries like China and India -- responsible for massive new "flows" of industrial exhaust -- to join any common global program beyond the Kyoto Protocol to stem climate change.
The summit comes in advance of the convergence of a major economic and geopolitical shift in the world.
Unlike past oil shocks, this current bout of price increases is here to stay. The long term demand trend for oil is ever upward because of rapid growth of India, China and the "rising rest." Though there will be dips, the price of oil is not likely to go down, only up. And up.
The next American president, whether Barack Obama or John McCain, will embrace the spirit of Kyoto, if not the actual protocol. Both of them have made this clear in their campaigns. This in turn will lead ultimately toward a global grand bargain in which the main emitters, including the US and China, agree to curb emissions. In exchange the rich nations will agree to the transfer of clean technology to the rising "flow" countries.
Japan is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this shift. While the world has been focused on the miracle of Chinese growth, the war in Iraq and terrorism, Japan has been engaging in a quiet revolution. It has become the incubator of the energy efficient technologies of the future.
Japan is the leading manufacturer and exporter of hybrid cars, most famously the Toyota Prius, which is selling like hotcakes in the United States. Honda has developed a hydrogen fuel cell car that is being prepared for mass production. Komatsu has just produced the world's first-ever
hybrid heavy machinery, a 20-ton excavator used in contstruction sites all across Asia.
Japan is responsible for 50 per cent of the world's solar power energy production. Japan uses 20 per cent less energy to produce a ton of steel than the US; 50 per cent less than China.
Innovations abound from capturing "ice energy" to more energy efficient plasma screens. Indeed, the facility that will house the media at the Lake Toya summit will be cooled by snow stored in thermal insulation instead of by air conditioning.
As America has moved toward a largely financial economy, exemplified by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Japan retains the very manufacturing and engineering prowess the world needs to face the daunting challenge of climate change.
This fits Japan's historical profile well. Going back centuries, it has had something of a green identity. As Umehara Takeshi, the great Japanese anthropologist, has noted, the Shinto religion, in which man is not considered apart from nature, emerged from ancient Japan's "civilization of the forest."
In the 17th century, as Jared Diamond points out in his seminal book, Collapse, the Tokugawa Shogunate reforested Japan, denuded by development, and saved it from the kind of ecological catastrophe that struck the Mayans. Though one of the most densely populated countries in the world, 70 per cent of Japan today is covered by healthy forests.
And, of course, the namesake of the very Protocol which is the first global effort to come to grips with climate change, is Japan's ancient capital, Kyoto.
Beneath the surface of Japan's faddish consumer society, the frugal culture of an island nation that must wisely husband limited resources still lives. Today, we recognize that the Earth itself is an island. Taking Japan's lead, the whole planet would be wise to adopt that frugal sensibility, living intelligently instead of wastefully.
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Biggest mistake Japan has made was a bad investment in nuclear power. They will pay for the mistake for the rest of the century. Otherwise, they get it.
"Taking Japan's lead, the whole planet would be wise to adopt that frugal sensibility, living intelligently instead of wastefully
It's absolutely fantastic Japan is moving forward as far as energy is concerned. But they still are the only advanced country that continues to hunt and eat endangered species. Yes they are really helping the environment by green technology, but they are cancelling this out be depleting our oceans. Japan's fishing industry has devastated our oceans more than any other nation, a topic which National Geographic regularly reports on. Over 1/3 of tuna and swordfish caught in the world are consumed in Japan, and their populations are dropping to dangerously low levels.
Japan is the only developed nation which continues to consume highly endangered species of whales, sharks, dophins, and fish. There is NO excuse for eating endangered animals when there are plenty of other sources of meat available.
They blatantly ignore the worldwide ban on whaling. I am a vegetarian because i love animals, but I am not one of those vegetarians who expects everyone else to be a vegetarian. However, the consuming of dolphin and whales is abhorant and inexcusable. These are extremely intelligent creatures. Each whale pod has a distinct language, and pods closer to eachother have more similar languages. Researches have discovered that dolphins have language and individual names.
Saying that Japan is the torch bearer for environmental frugality is ABSURD!!!
I don't totally agree with here, but you do have a point. Japanese though don't eat dolphin. I do believe they have killed dolphins for the sake of improving the catch of tuna. Whale hunting is still illegal in Japan. But some still do catch whales to eat.
As a country I wonder about all the fish eating myself. Everywhere you go in Japan they eat fish, sushi, sashimi to no ends. They are also afraid of eating American beef since they believe to be carrying mad cow disease.
A country the size of California where about 7/10th is all mountainous and unlivable. Yet they have half the population of the US. What are they to do?
It is true that dolphin and whale arent consumed in mainstream Japanese culture, that is more a tradition in the more ruural fishing villages. But mainstream Japanese DO kill dolphins regularly. Their argument is, as you say that these species are competing for fish that the Japanese eatl and in mainstream society dolphin and whales are used for pet food and fertilizer. Whales are supposedly used for "research" but the fact that they kill hundreds of whales EVERY year suggests that this is just an excuse to cut down a competing species and to use the whale commercially as they do the dolphin
I understand you point, that Japan is a crowded, mountainous island nation, and their resources are limited, so of course they will have to be heavily reliant on the ocean to feed themselves. But at the end of the day Japan's population is less than 2% of the world's, and yet they consume over 1/10th of all sea food on the planet. America is always being criticized for similar disproportionate use of natural resources compared to our population, yet you never hear anything in the MSM or even most alternate media regarding Japan. Certainly the Japanese should make improvements to their trade with resource rich neighbors like China before resorting to eating endangered and threatened species en masse, threatening the worldwide balance of oceanic life.
And who can blame them for NOT wanting our beef? Given the last eight years of U.S. history, I'm fairly certain half of all Americans were suffering with mad cow disease in 2000 and 2004.
Having lived in Japan for 4 1/2 years, there a lot of good and bad things about Japan. Many of the cultural and economic issues come from the fact that other than people, Japan has few resources.
They have a high population density squeezed into a small area making a mass transit a must.
They have a high standard of education (familial pressure to excel plus a rigorous education system that doesn't waste time focusing on emotional crap and concerning itself with esteem issues or political correctness). They teach hard work and job skills and test constantly. They refuse to teach their people much about their past errors or mull over their past national sins (this annoys the crap out of most of the rest of Asia).
They are a racially homogenous culture. They don't have really anything in the way of "oppressed minorities clamoring for justice" and the attendent billions spent assuaging "inequalities".
Police aren't armed but carry 4 foot staffs. Anyone getting mouthy gets beaten,and thrown in jail. They get billed for their medical costs. There is no redress for "police brutality" - you get whacked, you deserved it.
It is an attractive but different culture. Most of their societal norms would never work here. We don't think the same way and things that we value like freedom to be different, privacy, wide personal space, emotional coddling from society / government, and a need to examine our past for crimes against equality are very alien to them.
One thing I heard about decades ago (and actually was in a discusssion one time with a Japanese guy I ran into when I was there), was that Japan tried to bring a bunch of pressure to bear on our government right after the '73 oil shortage to develope our enormous geothermal resources.
They were astounded that we had these huge hot zones in Yellowstone and Long Valley, California that we weren't using for electricity generation and told us (either Nixon or Ford) that it was highly selfish of us to be importing so much oil for energy production instead of using our own resources.
Our government poo-pooed the whole thing and told them that we could afford to keep these areas as sacrosanct and would never be touched for such things no matter what occured in the future. The guy told me that it was a very public opinion that the Japanese thought we were being foolish, too.
Too bad we didn't listen to them on this.
The latest innovations are bridges that will transfer the vibrations from passing vehicles into electric power as well as street cars and trams that will do the same when braking. All this information can be had by subscribing to Japan for Sustainability weekly letters. Since receiving it last fall we have been very impressed with their efforts to come to grips with reducing carbon emissions.
Shinto's being one-with-nature vs. America's "manifest destiny."
Our historic national culture is not helping us here.
Lot's of luck to us.
Why does it take another country such as Japan to reinvent America?
They did it during the 70s. When Americans drove gas guzzlers and cars that were big and clunky, Japanese came out with cars that were economical, reliable and gas efficient. There cars cause the automotive industry to reinvent itself so that we can compete with the Japanese.
Now its happening again. Japan is once again leading the US in innovation and were playing catchup when it comes to green technology. GM at one point had the lead with their car called the EV-1. Only to kill it for a big hulking SUV such as the Hummer.
I lived in Japan. Japanese are no smarter than Americans. But they are much more determined and persistent. They also pride themselves in education. Here in America we pride ourselves in making war. We put to much emphasis into the military and our mentally is to divide and conquer. Japan's ideology is teamwork, hardwork , and harmony. Our culture doesn't suffer from a brain drain. We suffer from the lack of a philosophy which instills hope, prosperity and opportunity.
The sociology of DOMINANCE permeates every aspect of U.S. culture. If "Murkah" responds to this perception of Japanese preeminence, it will be abetted by the fear of being "DOMINATED"--not by the virtue of the course itself!
Because now it's global warming, and back then it was global cooling.
Did Japan have waist size limits back then, too?
Just why does it feel like it is the early 1970s all over again? Maybe because America is fighting a hopeless war, has a notorious liar for a president, is the absolute leader in space and the bottom of the world in everything else.
Some things never change...
Shouldn't the headline read "poised"?
Ah, good ... someone else noticed. For a minute, I thought it was just me. ;-)
Like I've been saying, if we don't start now the world will push on ahead of us and leave us behind sucking our oil wells dry for scraps of energy or trying vainly to buy technologies that we can no longer afford.
Swooge,
You've got it right, except you forgot to mention that we will become a country of very few, uber-wealthy families ruled by corporations and theocrats and a seething mass of poorly-educated service providers endlessly distracted by American Idol and fatty, sugary foods.
America continues to lag in the fields of science and technology.
I still love this country, just not in love with who runs it and what it's become.
Guess I better learn Japanese if I want to fit in with the cool kids.
Obama got it right. We need to compete globally. We need to focus more on education and to treat our teachers better.
In Japan they honor their teachers. People look up to them and its a society that has an utmost respect for their teachers.
While in America, they give teachers low pay, no respect and the priority of eduction is secondary to the military and the economy.
McCain won't help with education. Heck he can't even use a computer. We really do need a change.
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