Beyond Kyoto: The Formation of a Japanese Climate Change Regime

　

Dana R. Fisher

　

Abstract

　

        In Chapter 10, Dana R. Fisher draws on extensive qualitative interviews to illuminate Japanese domestic responses to the issue of climate change, particularly since COP3 in 1997. She looks at various social actors involved in political decisions surrounding Japan's response to potential international regulation in the context of climate change. She finds that civil society involvement has a "spatial" component. At the national level, Japan does not have a strong civil society addressing global issues like climate change. Her interviews revealed a consensus that there is an absence of citizen involvement in national debates about Japan's role in mitigating climate change. However, civil society is nonetheless engaged at the local level, a phenomenon explained by the historical development of Japanese society.

 

According to Fisher, different social actors in Japan have distinctive roles in shaping climate change policies. Government officials, working with industry, decide climate change policy. Citizens have a small role in formulating policy; their role is to be consumers. In other words, actors from science, industry and the state lead the way in making environmental protection possible, including in cases of broader issues like climate change. Fisher's findings challenge theories that say there must be significant social movements and a strong civil society before there can be "ecological modernization." One possible interpretation of his research, she suggests, is that many past environmental mistakes in Japan created a political consensus at the level of the state to avoid them in the future. Despite her findings about the limited role of civil society in shaping Japan's policies on climate change and its mitigation, Fisher believes that future policies may be subject to greater influence from this sector. So far, however, the state itself has developed a credible policy toward climate change, one that is arguably more proactive than many policies of countries where societal actors have much greater access to the policy-making process.