What is really holding Japan back from taking tough climate action?

About a month ago, I was researching in Japanese the COP27 climate conference that was held in Egypt in November last year and had trouble finding information. It occurred to me then that if the Japanese media did not do its job of reporting the truth about society, how would Japanese people be able to decide on the need to take action to stop the climate crisis? This could explain why climate action is not as robust in Japan as it is in many other nations. Let’s examine this idea.

Let’s start by looking at the state of climate action in Japan. Firstly, the Japanese government is known for being slow to implement policy. The researcher-led Climate Action Tracker rates Japan’s current climate initiatives as insufficient. While climate activists attempt to push the government to take more meaningful action, in a society based on demureness and cohesion, there is a bias against overt individual action, and street protests, in particular.

So, climate activists in Japan tend to be viewed as excessively concerned about environmental conditions. There is a huge gap in the climate awareness of these activists and the awareness shown by the government and most citizens. The majority of the population does not seem to know how serious climate change is and how much the Japanese government and some big organizations and companies are involved in creating climate-change victims. Is the media responsible for creating this gap?

Japan hampers the media’s watchdog function

The World Press Freedom Index ranks Japan at 71, out of 180 nations. It places in between Haiti and Kyrgyzstan. Among G7 countries, with the exception of some individual EU nations, Japan’s press freedom is the lowest. Reporters Without Borders describes the situation this way:

“Japan, a parliamentary democracy, generally respects the principles of media freedom and pluralism, although tradition and business interests often prevent journalists from fully fulfilling their role as watchdogs”.

There are many pressures on media in Japan. Its press club system encourages reporters to either follow the official line or risk being cut-off from government information, and risk-averse mainstream media keep their advertisers happy by also conforming to what the government decides is newsworthy.

At the Global Media Forum last year, Yosuke Buchmeier, a research associate at Munich University, said, “Japan has a significant and structural problem in its media system. There are a lot of taboo topics within Japanese society — for example, criticism of the government, economic issues, nuclear energy, and the emperor system. Instead of reporting on those, the news coverage redirects the public’s attention” to less critical topics, the European Journalism Observatory reported.

Climate change appears to be one of those taboo topics. Japan’s government, megabanks, and corporations do not want to crack the veneer of their green-washing public relations efforts by informing the public of their involvement in contentious, international fossil fuel projects.

Matarbari as an example of a Japanese media blind spot

Let’s take the Matarbari coal-fired power plant project in Bangladesh as an example. The mega power project was proposed in 2014 and construction began in 2017. Sumitomo Corporation participated in the first phase of the project through civil engineering and supply of ancillary equipment for the power plant, as well as marine civil engineering and port construction. The project was financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with a loan of around 500 billion yen — the largest loan it has ever given.

The project was criticized worldwide, especially by G7 countries that believed it violated the Group’s agreement to end new aid for coal-burning power stations that fail to take measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In response, the Japanese government finally announced in June 2022 that Japan would stop funding the project. The Sumitomo Group has also withdrawn from the plan’s second phase. The project has already forced more than 20,000 local residents to be relocated due to the construction, and the incorrectly evaluated environmental impact of the project is forecast by a Greenpeace report to cause up to 14,000 premature deaths in Bangladesh during 30 years of operation.

EACOP also out of sight and out of mind for Japan’s media

The East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project is another example of an issue that does not resonate with journalists in Japan. The project involves the construction of a 1,443 km oil pipeline connecting Uganda and Tanzania. When completed, the project will be the longest crude oil pipeline in the world, emitting more than 34 million tons of CO2 annually. Now the question is: who will carry out the project and who will finance it? The main operators are the French company Total Energy and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, MUFG Bank and many other major international banks are supporting the project.

Japan has a massive problem with transparency of information, especially when it comes to money. Banks, the government and other companies do not want the media questioning their actions. In a culture where asking questions can be seen as doubting someone’s judgment or ability, it is hard for journalists to navigate headwinds and risk losing their company its sponsors.

Limited sources of information are definitely a hurdle for Japanese citizens, but the mentality of “if you dare, you will be suppressed,” also needs to change. If someone has a stronger opinion on a social issue than most people in a society and tries to discuss it, that person is often not taken seriously or, worse, excluded from society. Unfortunately, this is still the reality of Japanese society today, and it is difficult to break this social norm. So, what can each of us do, even within these limits?

Construction of the EACOP was supposed to start this year, but so far no news has emerged. I see this as a glimmer of hope. We still have time to stop the project. There is some helpful information on the official website of #STOPEACOP. Follow the link to take part in change for the better. You can help save people, animals, and nature from damage — it is worth daring to be different.

For climate action in Japan