KAZE, July 2018
Japan’s distorted energy policy
Konoe FUJIMURA
More than ten years ago, I was invited to speak at a meeting of the Nuclear
Energy Council of the Government of Japan. The title of my speech was “Let’s put
nuclear power generation to a national debate to facilitate communication forprevention of global warming”. It was a few years before the FUKUSHIMA. At thattime, I already had the question; why matters related to power generation aredecided without public discussion? Energy issues are directly related to oureveryday life, so I thought it should be openly discussed before any decision ismade by the government. Therefore, at the meeting, I pointed out that the energy
issue is prevented from open discussion, and said that the government seems topresuppose the nuclear power generation to accommodate the increasing demandof energy. I also pointed out that energy education is not provided as needed andenergy information is biased and lacking. I tried to advocate that we need to havea national discussion on how to control energy demand of this country and on how
to supply clean energy based on fair, balanced and clear information.
Then came the Great East Japan Earthquake of 3.11 (11 March, 2011).
Minshu-to (Democratic Party of Japan) was in government at that time. They held
public hearings in many places in 2012 to listen to the voices of the people about
the desirable ratio of nuclear power generation in 2030. There, 87% of some
89,000 people chose “No nuclear power”, so based on the result of the public
hearing as well as on some newspaper polls, the government agreed on the basic
direction that nuclear power generation be abandoned by 2030. However, thesucceeding Abe Government of Liberal Democratic Party, conducted few “real”
public hearings, but a few several fake meetings.
Not surprisingly, the New Strategic Energy Plan 1 presented by METI
1New Strategic Energy Plan (the 4 th version of the Strategic Energy Plan):

https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2018/pdf/0703_002c.pdf
Related METI website: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2018/0703_002.html

(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) seems to have been drafted only among
those concerned and here again the process was not clear. The Plan is titled “New”,
but Minister Seko, to our surprise, stated that it is the revision and it does notintend to review the bone of the Plan because the previous one was formulated only
3 years ago. It is hard to believe that Minister of METI said this! It clearly showsthat they completely ignored the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the resulting big
global trend toward de-carbonization. It is a pity that METI, the ministryadministering Japanese industries under intense global competitions, lags far
behind the other developed countries in this respect.
Above all, it is quite strange that the review of the New Strategic Energy
Plan was discussed separately from the discussion of mid- and long-term plan toaddress the requirements of the Paris Agreement. Climate change issues andenergy issues are closely related with each other. To address climate issues, it isquite important to discuss what kind of energy we choose and how much we canuse. Why do they intentionally separate climate issues from energy issues? Myguess is that it would be because METI does not like other ministries to interferewith their jurisdiction of energy issues.
They have long kept this fixed attitude of eliminating other ministries fromthe discussion of energy issues, which has been/is reflected in their choice of themembership of their expert councils. Those pro-business professors and academic
experts make up the vast majority of the committees and there are few who speak
for the prevention of climate change and global warming. No wonder that quite a lotof comments for the revival of nuclear power generation were made at theirmeetings in the past. It seems that they believe in technology innovation as apanacea of any problem. I do not object to technology innovation at all, but it will
not bring about the decarbonized society only by itself.

To overcome climate challenges and build a really sustainable anddecarbonized society, we have much to do other than technology innovation.
We will need to create new values transforming from the current social andeconomic system placing “growth” above anything else. In this regards, roles tobe played by education will be enormous for the future generation. These views

should have been referred to in the above mentioned New Strategic Energy Plan
at least in its preface.
On this Plan, METI had a thirty-day comment period last May/June, but
it was quite doubtful that people read through the document of more than 100
pages and submit their opinion when they were not sure of the impact of theirvoices. People knew that, at the time of the public hearing, the Plan was mostly
fixed and there was little room of new/adverse comments were reflected to it.
As we have seen many times before, the public hearing was used as an evidenceof having heard “public voices” before the government made the final decision
which have already decided at the time of the public comment period. It islamentable that the public hearing system itself does not function as originallyintended for equity and transparency of public administration.
Chapter 2, Section 4 of the New Strategic Energy Plan is entitled“Enhancement of communication with all levels of the society”. There, “transparentpolicy planning process and enhancement of two-way communication” is clearly
declared in addition to “deepening of understanding of all levels of the society” and“promotion of the provision of energy-related information by a third-party
organization through enhanced access to objective information and data.”
However, the method and process of policy planning described there is the same as
before, and neutrality and impartiality of the council members are not referred to.
Furthermore, it does not mention the need of national debates or integration ofenergy policy into climate-related policies.
Therefore, with growing concerns over the climate policy trend in Japan,
we, Kanbun, made an urgent proposal of “Let’s Straighten out Japan’s Energy
Policy Distortion!” in May 2018. Our proposal is composed of the following threepoints.
i)

Policy processes related to national energy issues should be transparent
and more open to the public establishing a system of reflecting views offuture generations. Government should make more opportunities ofhearing public opinions on the current draft of the New Strategic Energy

Plan, holding open meetings in various parts of Japan.
ii)

The Government should start examination of establishing Ministry ofEnergy and Environment.

iii)

The energy and climate issues should be given the highest prioritized in
the policy agenda and should be seriously discussed as the most importantand pressing issue both among the ruling parties and the opposition.
It seems that the current government of Japan led by Prime Minister Abe

does not understand what is really needed for making our country sound andsustainable. Now, we have to terminate the era of old policy making where energy
and environment issues are decided only among those concerned/businessstakeholders. The energy and environment issues are closely and directly related topeople’s everyday life. To protect our lives, we will continue to appeal theimportance of reflecting people’s voices to national policies and the pressing needsof discussing energy and environment issues openly among general public.