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Empowered? Evaluating Japan's national energy strategy under the DPJ administration

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 23:23 authored by Scott Valentine, Benjamin SovacoolBenjamin Sovacool, Masahiro Matsuura
n August 2009, after 54 years of virtually unbroken rule, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was ousted from power by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The DPJ's campaign platform included a pledge to facilitate extreme reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, at the COP16 meeting in Cancun, Japan announced that it would not accept further emission reduction targets without broader commitment from all nations. This paper seeks to explain this dichotomy by employing a targeted stakeholder evaluation based on surveys with 321 Japanese citizens to assess the extent to which influential stakeholder groups in Japan supports a potentially costly transition to a low-carbon energy infrastructure amidst severe economic challenges that the nation faces. Findings help explain Japan's adversarial role in COP16 negotiations in Cancun, despite the stated GHG reduction ambitions of Japan's current ruling party. The analysis concludes that if the DPJ does embrace aggressive CO2 reduction targets in the future, the strategic focus will likely mirror the former ruling party's energy policy of bolstering nuclear power generation capacity and promoting energy efficiency improvements while exhibiting lukewarm commitment to supporting capacity development in alternative sources of energy supply such as solar panels and wind turbines.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Energy Policy

ISSN

0301-4215

Publisher

Elsevier

Issue

3

Volume

39

Page range

1865-1876

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-12-10

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