What might the environmental policy of Tokyo Metropolitan Government achieve?

Abstract

The summer was infernally hot this year in Japan. Many observation sites recorded highest temperatures since 1875. Official weather terms like ‘‘Nettaiya’’ (a sultry night when temperature does not drop below 25 C) and ‘‘Moushobi’’ (a day when temperature goes over 35 C) were reported on television and newspapers every day. Japan seems to have become a tropical country. If this is the harbinger of global warming, which needs to be prevented per Kyoto Protocol, adaptation seems to be of higher priority now than mitigation. The Kyoto Protocol, which set the numerical targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of developed countries, established the target period from 2008 to 2012. The GHG reduction target for Japan was 6% in 2010 compared to the benchmark year of 1990. However, the total GHG emission in 2008 was 1.282 billion ton according to the Ministry of the Environment. This total emission was higher by 1.6% than that in the benchmark year due to increased consumption of fossil fuels in the commercial/business and household sectors. Comparing this total emission with the counterpart in 2007, the amount in 2008 was reduced by 6.4% due to decreased fossil fuel use in the industrial sector. This decrease was congruent with the worldwide recession due to the financial crisis of 2008 leading to a decrease in energy demand in various sectors, especially industry. Various actions toward GHG emission reduction have been taken at the national level in Japan. In accordance with the Kyoto Protocol of the 1998 Conference of the Parties Third Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3), Japan adopted, as the first step, promotion of measures through various public and private entities to cope with global warming. In 2008, the law was revised to achieve a numerical reduction target of 6% by the Kyoto Protocol. The main point of the revision was to achieve accurate estimation, reporting, and publicity of GHG reduction. The revision ordered companies (units of business and franchise) to estimate and report GHG emission. Given this revision, the law concerning the rational use of energy constituted after the second oil crisis was revised and has been enacted since April 2010. A company per se (including headquarter, branches, plants with annual energy usage of more than 1500 m of crude oil equivalent) needs to report the amount of energy usage to the Government and to be permitted as a designated energy management company. This regulation also targets companies with franchise chain system like Seven–Eleven. The designated company is required to employ a general manager on energy and a project practitioner on energy management. Besides, the revision of the law concerning the promotion of the measures to cope with global warming forces the local authorities, i.e., prefectural and city governments to enact an action plan for suppression of greenhouse gas emission according to natural and local conditions. In contrast to other local municipalities, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) with a population of 130 million and gross regional product of 815 billion USD in 2006 has been independently working on the strategy of ‘‘Environmental Revolution’’ —action toward an environmentally advanced city for a sustainable society. One exemplary action is regulating diesel cars, directly led by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of TMG. On Aug 27 1999, the governor Ishihara commenced an active discussion to change the minds of citizens on the use M. Hosomi (&) Department of Chemical Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: hosomi@cc.tuat.ac.jp