The development of climate security discourse in Japan
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OVERVIEW ARTICLE
The development of climate security discourse in Japan Yasuko Kameyama1 · Keishi Ono2 Received: 26 September 2019 / Accepted: 11 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract As the level of understanding about climate change has increased, the term “climate security” has been increasingly used in the rapidly growing literature on this subject. Although Japan has officially acknowledged the importance of tackling climate change, discussion of climate security has been almost nonexistent among Japanese governmental officials, politicians, and academics. Our aim was to trace discourses related to climate security in Japan to determine why so little exists in Japan and whether or not such discourse could suggest new areas for consideration to more comprehensively respond to the climate change problem. Because of different interpretations and uses of the term “climate security” in the existing literature, we first categorized existing approaches to climate security into four types and used this categorization to examine Japan’s discourse from these perspectives. Two of the approaches, namely “long-term irreversible planetary changes” and “short-term abrupt risks to individuals”, had been considered in Japan previously but without specific reference to the term climate security. The other two, “cause of conflict and violence” and “impacts to military and defense organizations”, however, had not been used and need to be included in discussions of climate change in Japan. Some of the topics not discussed in Japan include indirect economic losses of Japanese industries via supply chains, loss of Japan’s exclusive economic zone due to sea-level rise, and the potential inflow of refugees resulting from extreme weather patterns outside of Japan. Keywords Climate security · Japan · Adaptation · Conflict · Disaster management
Introduction Climate change is widely recognized as one of the most serious threats to human beings and ecosystems (IPCC 2014). Japan is one of many countries that have officially acknowledged that climate change is a serious global problem and that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must occur immediately in all countries (Hattori 2007; KagawaFox 2012; Kameyama 2017). As our understanding of the climate change problem has increased, we have also witnessed a vast increase in the use of terms such as “climate Handled by Keishiro Hara, Osaka University Center of Environmental Innovation Design for Sustainability, Japan. * Yasuko Kameyama [email protected] Keishi Ono [email protected] 1
National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16‑2, Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
National Institute for Defense Studies, 5‑1 Ichigayahonmuracho, Shinjuku‑ku, Tokyo, Japan
2
security”, “climate change and security”, and “climaterelated security” by experts and practitioners worldwide. Debate on climate security, however, is almost nonexistent among Japanese government officials and politicians. The same can be said for Japanese academics, who have published very few journal ar
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