Japan’s opportunity to lead

Why nations lead or lag in energy transitions

“…In contrast, Japan's political institutions were changed starting in the 1990s: the new mixedmember majoritarian electoral system empowers price-sensitive consumers, and bureaucratic autonomy has been weakened considerably. Under this institutional configuration, successive Japanese governments have struggled to accelerate its clean energy transition (8). The country's response to the war in Ukraine has sought to cushion the impact for consumers and businesses by subsidizing oil wholesalers and maintaining economic interests in Russian natural gas projects in Sakhalin.…”

Japan: the harbinger state

“…Japan's geographic location also likely contributes to its status as a laggard in some areas. Japan's slow response to climate change (Aldrich et al ., 2019; Incerti and Lipscy, 2020) may have been more proactive if the country was subject to peer pressure as a member of the European Union or shared a land border with a resource-rich country, which would give it more options to manage energy security challenges.…”

Sustainable finance in Japan

“…Japan underwent several structural changes and regulatory shifts, meant to facilitate the transition toward a lowcarbon society, especially in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power accident in 2011. However, progress remains low despite several emissions-related policies, including a carbon tax, at roughly 5US$/tCO 2 one of the lowest in the world, the introduction of a feed-in tariff (FiT) for renewables in 2012, or the gradual liberalization of the domestic electricity market, to be completed by 2020 (Aldrich, Lipscy, and McCarthy 2019;Schumacher 2019a). The latter is expected to curtail the obstacles to renewable energy production and its integration into the grid for many independent or small-scale renewable energy producers (Schumacher 2017).…”

“…The latter is expected to curtail the obstacles to renewable energy production and its integration into the grid for many independent or small-scale renewable energy producers (Schumacher 2017). After the disaster, with nuclear power accounting for only 2% of the total primary energy supply (TPES) and further restarts having become socially unacceptable, the share fossil fuels increased from 65% to 84% of the TPES (Aldrich, Forester, and Horhager 2018;IEA 2018b;Aldrich, Lipscy, and McCarthy 2019). Yet, Japan's share of low-carbon energy in the TPES remains comparatively low among OECD member states (Schumacher 2017(Schumacher , 2019a.…”