This brochure consists of two parts:
In Part 1, we look from global perspectives (with examples from North America in particular) at
how various social injustices led to a disparity in the impacts of climate change and environmental
degradation.
Here in Part 2, we look at the current situation concerning climate justice in Japan, highlightingsome specific examples.
By reading Part 1 and Part 2 together, you can see why we need environmental
and climate justice and what the cause and context of the issues are, both in termsof the global historical context and the current situation, including that of Japan. If
you haven’t, we recommend you read Part 1 first.
Access Part 1 here:
https://bit.ly/3VLJyXIThere are many forms of social injustice in Japan too that lead to climate injustice.
In Japan, there are various identities that often make people vulnerable in today’s Japanesesociety, but here, we discuss a few examples, with an overview and specific circumstances in Japan:

women and gender inequality; people in poverty suffering from economic disparity; workers inprimary industries vulnerable to climate change; and Indigenous People living in harmony withnature whose cultural identity is threatened by climate change.

It should be noted that many other forms of injustice exist beside those highlighted here, andyou cannot rank them in order of importance. Please see the table on the back cover for otheridentities that are typically considered socially vulnerable.
Each person has multiple social identities (attributes such as race and gender), which intersect
and interact with each other.
For example, although women are generally at a disadvantage in society due to genderinequality, women of color are particularly disadvantaged compared to white women because of thecombined effects of their identities.
Men may tend to be in a more privileged position, but men living in poverty are stripped of thepower that aﬄuent men enjoy due to the combination of their social identities.
The concept that explains the way in which different combinations of elements create unique

circumstances for individual people, as you can see in these examples, is called intersectionality.

In Part 2, let’s look at the unfairness of the impacts of climate change and climate measures fordifferent groups of people and communities in Japan.

1What is climate justice? vol.2

◯Impacts of Climate Change on Women

As you can see in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023, which ranked
Japan 125th out of 146 countries in the gender gap index, gender inequality is significant in theJapanese society, especially where it comes to the labor market and the division of roles at home.
Although women’s participation in the labor market is on the increase, women’s average lifetime
earnings is only 75.2% of men’s earnings in Japan (2021). One of the causes of the disparity is
the high proportion of women in non-regular employment (women make up around 68% of all nonregular workers in 2023.).
Also, when you compare the amount of time men and women spend on housework, child careand family care each day on average, women spent 3 hours and 28 minutes in 2016, 44 minutes
longer than men. These forms of at-home labor are considered free, and this is one of the factorsthat prevent women from gaining financial independence.
In Japan, climate change is manifesting itself as heat waves and frequent occurrences of extreme
weather events, which are significantly affecting women’s health and daily living. Increased healthrisks due to extreme heat in particular add to thePlease note that, although gender inalready heavy responsibility of care work that womenthe context of social life is a spectrum
bear. Moreover, increased social stresses negativelyof diverse identities and not binary
impact women’s mental health and destabilize day-toas man or woman, this text discusses
day living. Also, a study has found that violence andgender in binary terms of men
sex crimes against women increase at times of naturaland women in order to explain thedisasters such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami as
discrimination that exists based on thewell as hurricanes and other disasters abroad, showing 5
showing
traditional idea of binary genders.
how disasters heighten gender-based risks.
The impacts of climate change are extensive, but
it is particularly serious for women in non-regular
employment. Disasters brought on by climate changesuch as powerful typhoons and intense rainfalls canhave a direct impact on these women through lossof work and exacerbated financial vulnerability. The
traditional employment practice in Japan increases theburden of “free” care work, which puts them in an evenmore difficult financial position. There is an urgent needto protect these women from climate change-induced
gender inequality and take corrective action to solve
the problem.
Researched and written by: Marimo Higa

123
45

World Economic Forum, 2023, Global Gender Gap Report 2023
Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau, 2021, Current Status and Challenges of Gender Equality in Japan
Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau, 2022, White Paper on Gender Equality 2022
Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau, 2020, White Paper on Gender Equality 2020
Journal of the International University of Health and Welfare, 26 (2), 50-67, October 1, 2021, “The impact ofdisasters on violence against women”

2The Climate Reality Project Japan◯Impacts of Climate Change on the People in Poverty

One out of six people living in Japan are in relative poverty. Relative poverty means low
income relative to others in a country, and in Japan in 2021, this is defined as an annual take-homehousehold income of less than 1.27 million yen.6 Poverty is particularly prevalent among singleparent households and older people living on their own.
Life’s essentials such as lighting and hot water, as well as cooling to protect yourself fromextreme heat, all require energy. However, many people are in energy poverty, where they cannot
afford to buy enough energy.7
Being in energy poverty means having to choose between energy and things like food, medicine
and education from a limited disposable income. While the risk of heat-related illness increases due
to global temperature rise, climate change also leads to skyrocketing price of food and energy,
which can seriously harm the life, health and livelihood of people with low income.

In a survey conducted in January-February 2023,
around 77% of the 85 food banks from across Japan8that responded said that they were receiving morerequests for help due to the higher cost of living.9
Another survey suggests that around 40% of foodbank users have missed payments on energy bills.10
It is not uncommon for people with low income
to choose to live in locations susceptible to natural
disasters or in older properties in order to keep therent down. This makes them vulnerable to destructive
weather events, which are becoming more frequentand severe due to the effects of climate change. Inaddition, many older properties are energy inefficientwhen it comes to heating and cooling, and theincreased requirement for energy further exacerbates
energy poverty.

Researched and written by: Yuki Watanabe

678910Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2022, Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions
Climate Reality Project, 2023, Climate 101: What is Energy Burden?
A food bank is an initiative that collects edible but unsellable food due to broken packaging, misprints, etc., anddistributes it to social welfare institutions, single-parent households and households in poverty.
NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, 2023, Summer holidays without school lunches: food banks struggle tostock up as requests for help soar
Food Bank Sendai, 2023, Survey on the increase in poverty due to the rise in cost of living and energy bill conducted

3
What is climate justice? vol.2

◯Impacts of Climate Change on Primary Industry Workers

Primary industries including agriculture, forestry and fishery are dependent on the naturalenvironment, and therefore at the forefront of climate change impacts. Agriculture and fishery inparticular are hugely affected already.
In agriculture, the quality of rice is affected by the temperature increase across Japan. Farmers
are seeing quality issues caused by heat such as white immature grains and cracked grains that
directly impact the yield. Reports suggest that farms are facing reduced revenues and financial
losses due to low rice yields.11
In the fishery industry, an example of climate impacts is that, according to reports, the migration
pattern of saury around the North Pacific is changing, with the fish moving south later due to rising
sea temperatures. According to the National Saury Stick-held Dip-net Fishery Cooperation, theannual catch of saury collapsed from 340,000 tons in 2008 to less than 20,000 tons in recentyears.12 Fishers of main saury landing ports such as Hakodate, Hokkaido are badly affected andfacing a devastating drop in income.
As you can see, the impacts of climate change
on industries affect workers in those sectors
and their communities economically. In Japan,
only 3.1% of all workers are engaged in primaryindustries,13 yet they bear a disproportional shareof the burden.
According to the Statistical Survey on FarmManagement and Economy , the gross agricultural
income of agricultural management entities(including both juridical entities and individuals)
is 11,656,000 yen, while agricultural expenditureis 10,674,000 yen. This leaves a dwindling annual
average net income as low as 982,000 yen fromthe entire agricultural operation.14 This explains
why most agricultural workers are considered to
be in poverty.
The rising temperatures, with the resulting
deterioration in rice crop quality and disruptions infishery patterns, are only going to exacerbate thefinancial misery of agricultural and fishery workers
already living on poverty income.
Researched and written by: Polity Chheang
1112

Ministry of the Environment (MOE), Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT),
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(MILT) of Japan, and Japan Meteorological Agency, 2018, Climate Change in Japan and Its Impacts
Jiji Press (2023), Are poor saury catches due to fish moving offshore? Global warming is changing marine

1314environment
Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, 2023, Number of workers by economic activity
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2022, Agriculture income and expenditure per businessfarming entities 2022

4
The Climate Reality Project Japan◯Impacts of Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples

The impacts of climate change is already affecting the lives, livelihoods and human rights of370 million Indigenous Peoples worldwide.15 Even though their traditional ways of life emit negligible
amounts of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, they are among the most severely affected
populations on Earth.
There are several reasons why Indigenous Peoples are more vulnerable to climate change,
including: socioeconomic hardship; poor access to and quality of healthcare; high incidence ofdiseases; gender inequality; high rates of migration, and political marginalization.
Added to those are the fact that the land is central to Indigenous Peoples, as many havedeveloped unique relationships with the natural environment they live in: For example, they are living
on or next to untouched natural lands from which they obtain nature-derived foods and medicines.
This means that extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and severe due toclimate change, can destroy their traditional ways of life. When it becomes necessary for them tomove to a different place, this can mean much more than a simple act of relocation; it can strip themof their cultural identities.
Worse still, despite the fact that the traditional ways of life of Indigenous Peoples are in harmony
with nature, have low environmental impact and often are rich sources of knowledge that can help
mitigate climate change, Indigenous communities are often prevented from putting those mitigation
measures in practice and are exposed to the inequity and injustice of climate impacts.
Japan is home to the Ainu people, an Indigenous People
native to Hokkaido with its own unique language, religion
and culture. A survey conducted in 2017 found that there
were 13,118 Ainu people, of which over 70% lived in Iburi
and Hidaka regions.16
The cultures of many Indigenous Peoples value theirtraditional ways of life such as hunting, fishing and farmingthat depend on natural environments. For the Ainu people,salmon fishing has a central significance both to theirlivelihood and cultural heritage. However, climate change
has impacted salmon catches in Hokkaido. Without salmon,
the Ainu people will be unable to conduct some of theirimportant rituals in their traditional forms,17 and they will
also face a likely prospect of their sources of food andlivelihood diminishing.
To the Ainu people, climate change is a threat not onlyto their livelihood (work and economy) and food security but
also to their culture.
Researched and written by: Kieu An Nguyen

15
16UNESCO, 2023, Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Climate Change
Comprehensive Ainu Policy Office, Cabinet Secretariat, 2023, Overview of Ainu Policy in Japan

17

The Asahi Shimbun Company, 2022, Ainu people: “catching salmon means restoring our ethnic pride”

5
What is climate justice? vol.2

No climate justice without social justice
We need to open our eyes to the reality faced by people who
experience climate impacts “first and the worst”.

In any and all of our activities to tackle climate change, it’s important that we listen sincerely
to the voices of vulnerable people, and that any system and policy decision-making processes arewith those voices.
However, looking at vulnerable people merely as people that need to be“protected” or“helped” can disempower them and ignore their agency, which may serve to reinforce the injusticeof the existing social structure.

Let’s think about how we ourselves relate to this unjust system.
Climate justice and climate change are material issues for us all. We hope that this brochure
will encourage more people to think about climate justice as something that matters to them andaffects people around them.

6The Climate Reality Project Japan

The Climate Reality Project is a global initiative working to tackle climate change.
We are not just calling for climate change mitigation, we are also calling for climate justice.
Please feel free to access our various materials available on climate justice.
The source of this brochure can be viewed on
the CRP Japan website. https://bit.ly/3VKiM23

List of Main Identities
Majority(socially superior position in Japan)

Minority(socially inferior position in Japan)

RaceJapaneseForeigners, Korean diasporas, Ainu, etc.

Sex assigned at birth

MaleFemale

Sexual Orientation

Heterosexual

LGBTQ+

Gender Identity

Cisgender(Body and gender identity match)

Transgender(Body and gender identity do not match)

Academic Background

Highly educated

Low education background

Economic ClassHigh income

Low income

Physical and Mental Health

HealthySuffer from illness or disability

Residential Area

Living in a metropolitan area

Local resident

Created by CRP Japan based on Makiko Deguchi and Jun Nakano, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), 2022,
You may be in a dominant position: what are hard-to-spot privileges

Published on April 1, 2024
Publisher: The Climate Reality Project Japan
Editors: Yuiko Mitani and Yuki Watanabe
Authors: Nguyen Kieu An, Chheang Polity, Marimo Higa and Yuki Watanabe
Production Assistance : CRP Japan Community Members
Translation: Eco Networks, Chheang Polity and Yuiko Mitani
Design: Mihoko Araki
Illustration: Florence Wong
Printed using natural energy (biomass power generation) on recycled paper.