Climate action by Japanese youths, active and undeterred

The climate crisis is an ongoing threat to global peace and security that is expected to worsen in the near future. To reduce its damage to our lives as much as possible, we need to take bold action ― we need a revolution. The power of youths has a key role to play in that. Young climate activists in Japan have been hard at work too, undeterred by the spread of Covid-19 and related social restrictions.

Young people’s activism for the climate began with a school strike by Greta Thunberg in Sweden in 2018 that evolved into a worldwide movement of millions of young people. The inspired Fridays For Future (FFF) Japan was founded in February 2019, with thousands of young people later participating in the Global Climate March on September 20 that year. In 2020, despite the Covid-19 epidemic, about a hundred young people met to share solutions for the future at the first Climate Crisis Youth Summit in Japan.

Shibuya COP 2021

Shibuya COP 2021 was an online event to raise the awareness of climate change among Japanese youth and to share tips and solutions for living more sustainably. The event was hosted by the organization SWiTCH, which was founded by 27-year-old Mana Saza, who represented Japanese youth at COP26 in 2021.

Shibuya COP’S online discussion sessions were coordinated to replicate the timing and topics of those at the Glasgow COP, starting October 31 and running for two weeks. These discussions worked toward the aim of having Japanese youth create a vision for climate action in Japan that will keep temperature increases to within 1.5 degrees by 2050. The organizers also submitted a climate action plan to the Shibuya local government in December. Shibuya COP was the start of SWiTCH’s plan to create 1 million sustainability ambassadors by the time EXPO 2025 is held in Osaka.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by 【公式】ACT1.5℃ (@act1.5official)

Pre-Stockholm+50 Youth Conference in Tokyo

On April 25 this year, the Pre-Stockholm+50 Youth Conference in Tokyo was held at the Swedish Embassy. The main focus of this conference was to discuss topics such as the climate and biodiversity crisis, and contaminated waste issues.

About 120 people attended, including 60 young people, with more than 300 people also participating online. Action plans were formed during the conference through group discussions about topics such as the systematic and lifestyle-related changes needed to rein in climate change. Some young participants in the pre-conference were selected and funded to attend the Stockholm+50 meeting of the UN, its members and other stakeholders in June.

Youth Climate Conference 2022

The Youth Climate Conference 2022 was organized by the Japan Youth Conference (JYC) and held online over five days from March 12 to April 24. Participants were given the opportunity to talk with a politician, and to give policy suggestions to the Japanese environment ministry.

JYC was established in 2015 with the aim of sharing the voice of young people with society via political parties and governments through policy proposals.

Japan’s approach to Covid deepens young people’s understanding

In a nation where the world of politics seems far removed from regular people’s lives, the Covid-19 pandemic has heightened young Japanese people’s awareness of the relevance of politics. This is because throughout the pandemic, the Japanese government maintained its own strategies that included one of the strictest border control measures among developed countries. More than two years after the pandemic had begun, Japan was still shutting out most foreigners even though most countries had removed such measures. These steps did not stop the spread of Covid-19 in Japan though. This example showed young people here how conservative Japan’s political decision-making can be, particularly when faced with new ideas or issues that need to be tackled now to manage long-term effects.

The environmental crisis is similar. It is relatively new in policy terms and hard to imagine how big the damage we will become 100 years from now. Political leaders also tend to make vague statements because they may not be alive by the time the catastrophe occurs, so don’t feel a need to act. This is why interaction between young people and political decision-makers is important; young people know that climate issues will directly affect their lives and that they therefore must take action on them.

Need to get more young Japanese involved in climate action

A common thread in the various climate actions by Japanese youth is the comparatively low number of participants. They typically number only a few hundred to a thousand highly motivated young people, which is quite low compared to youth actions in the EU. Today, there are only 13.8 thousand followers of the Japan Fridays for Future Instagram account, compared to 534 thousand followers in Germany, for example.

The next course of action on climate should be to expand to include more young people not currently familiar with the movement. The key to achieving that is communication. Reassessing the types of social media most used by youth is one thing that needs to be considered. The Covid pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of communication and spreading the climate message through social media will have a massive effect on youth activism.

By tolerating Japan’s outdated practices and unhelpful social systems the public is passively supporting the occurrence of climate catastrophe. Backed by the energy of youth, together we can change our future and you can be a part of a revolution for the better.