The Promotion of Regional Initiatives to Address Global Warming

ABSTRACT

In Japan, the recognition of the importance of the global warming measures has reached the local level. Direct engagements with environmental issues are underway in prefectural and city governments as they establish plans for promoting global warming measures and goals for the reduction of greenhouse gasses. At the same time, however, many city governments - particularly in cities with "branch-office" economies where there are no large-scale factories and where the population perpetually rises due to influxes from neighboring areas - are having great difficulties in achieving the reduction goals they set for themselves. Such areas still lack the infrastructural base, e.g. budget and personnel, needed to support such efforts.

In order to overcome the problems of ineffective global warming measures in local areas, local governments must emphasize regional off-set projects in addition to energy conservation. By doing this, they make it easier to choose more cost-effective strategies toward reduction goals, and create more options that involve the cultivation of regional industry. In creating an infrastructural base for industrial cultivation, it is necessary to have a cultivation program, a framework for the supply of funds, and to shape a market that would secure the achievement of reduction goals.

The utilization of market mechanisms such as emission trading would make it possible to minimize the total costs of achieving the set goals and provide regional workers with much needed experience. At the same time, this would instill an awareness that greenhouse gas reduction activities actually have economic value, an awareness that would greatly encourage regional efforts.

To make the partnerships between government, industry, and private organizations function more smoothly, it is necessary to bolster the building-block alliances between private organizations and corporation, and strengthen the management base of the private organizations through such methods as a preferential tax treatment and an adoption of a reduction credit purchasing system. When environmental efforts are directed into allied initiatives, options multiply, costs are reduced, the opportunities for regional workers expand, and the influence upon other regions is increased. To give an example, the joint management of reduction credits can improve the added value (environmental brand name) of regional efforts.

Several local governments have stepped ahead of the national government and, capitalizing on the unique strengths of their regions, have started independent global warming measures of their own. While this display of leadership in seeking out new methods is highly praised, some level of standardization may be required in the future. What is important is emphasizing not just the reinforcement of restrictions and obligations but also the generation of more business opportunities.

While the role of the national government will be to implement the policies necessary to meet the goals of the Kyoto Protocol and to continue its involvement in designing an internationally viable system, local governments should use their regional communities as testing grounds for new and innovative global warming measures. These initiatives should focus on cultivating the industrial sector and creating mechanisms that would elicit self-motivated participation. These activities, furthermore, will contribute to the efforts of the nation as a whole by potentially providing new and successful models for addressing the issue of global warming.