Placing Your Environmental Policies in the Wider World

Abstract

In Chapter 8, we looked at where countries and politicians sit on the world stage and what the problems are with getting governments to adopt more stringent environmental policies. Take Japan as an example. This country is considered by many to be the country that is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change after the heavy rain, heat waves, the Osaka earthquake, and Jebi typhoon all hit the country in 2018. The government of Japan knows that they have to do more and that they need to switch to renewables and nuclear, but the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 has put the fear of God into both the Japanese government and the Japanese people. As a result, when the COP26 climate conference came around in 2021, Japan opposed measures to have countries pledge to stop the burning of coal, and the country remains one of the world’s largest polluters in the use of coal-fired power stations.