Abstract
This paper profiles Fukuoka City in Kyushu, Japan. We focus on the city's local climate change adaptation policies, and in particular the role of urban and greenspace planning in facilitating adaptation actions within Fukuoka. Fukuoka is a humid subtropical city which is currently experiencing significant population and economic growth. It has also made comparatively rigorous advances in climate adaptation, in a country context where local governments have been criticised for focusing more on mitigation. Fukuoka hence may yield lessons for other rapidly urbanising subtropical Asian cities. We illustrate that Fukuoka has a long tradition of science-policy connection towards the creation of a liveable urban environment. This creates a favourable research and policy infrastructure for adaptation, in particular mitigation of heat risk. This is evidenced in consideration of climate issues within the city's greenspace plans since the 1990s, and in an extensive body of underpinning applied research from local institutions into urban thermal environments in particular. Fukuoka's green terraced ACROS building has come to symbolise adaptation via the built environment, and has been followed by the emergence of further green roofs and through citizen and private sector involvement in smaller-scale greening actions. We caution that challenges remain around connecting different sections of local governments, and in maintaining climate and environmental imperatives in the face of ongoing development and expansion pressures.
Highlights
Introduction and rationale Japanese policy on climate change has been criticised for focusing more on mitigation than adaptation at the local1 level (Baba et al, 2017; Kameyama, 2016), Fukuoka City has considered adaptation to the effects of environmental change within its greenspace and urban plans since the late 1990s (Fukuoka City, 1999)
For the purpose of this City Profile, we focus on Fukuoka City as an administrative unit
Respondents commented that the conditions of governmentfunded projects sometimes made data sharing or re-use for further research into local climate adaptation difficult, an observation made for Tokyo by Hijioka et al (2016). This City Profile has illustrated that within Japan, Fukuoka has made relatively early progress on local governance of climate change adaptation, particular as regards consideration of specific implementation actions when compared to cities in western Japan of similar size and climate
Summary
Japanese policy on climate change has been criticised for focusing more on mitigation than adaptation at the local level (Baba et al, 2017; Kameyama, 2016), Fukuoka City has considered adaptation to the effects of environmental change within its greenspace and urban plans since the late 1990s (Fukuoka City, 1999). It can be considered a front-running city within Japan for local climate change policy, and for actions targeted towards adaptation to environmental change supported by the applied research history outlined above. This is because (a) Fukuoka City Government is the municipal administrative unit governing the built-up area of Fukuoka City, and can make finer-scale recommendations than the higherlevel prefectural government; and (b) Fukuoka Prefecture in any case is required to develop adaptation actions for a mixed rural and urban context It is noted in Fukuoka City's climate plan that the prefectural climate plan provides general overarching guidance for the city's actions, but that these are translated into practice via policies and spatial plans produced by the city government (Fukuoka City, 2016a). Actions and policies relevant to Fukuoka City but enacted by Fukuoka Prefecture are considered within the profile as and when appropriate
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