Going Green: Energy Conservation Is No Barrier to Japan's Economic Ambitions

Jean, Grace V., National Defense

TOKYO -- Every spring, fierce winds kick up the Gobi Desert's dust and blow east through China, where the dirt blends with pollutants from the growing numbers of factories. The resulting mixture travels across the Sea of Japan and hangs over this nation's islands in a smog the locals call "yellow sand." When the rainy season arrives in late spring, it falls from the sky and coats everything with a dirty film--a heightening reminder of the world's changing climate.

Japan boasts one of the world's strictest and most progressive policies on global warming. Officials here do not question whether the Earth's climate is changing. Instead, they treat the phenomenon as a current crisis that they are attempting to solve by setting ambitious environmental standards and energy laws. Such goals are the driving force behind the country's technology advancements that strive to improve energy conservation and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Since the world's first oil crisis in the 1970s, Japan has experienced a 37 percent reduction in energy consumption--one of the best rates among industrialized nations. In the country's latest energy policy, government officials are aiming for another significant improvement in the next 22 years.

"The most important part of this policy is to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent by 2030," says Kaztmori Nagai, general director of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization's energy conservation department. The organization is one of several government-funded agencies that manage, evaluate and commercialize technologies aimed at improving energy efficiency.

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Japan's gross domestic product has more than doubled since 1973, from 200 trillion to 525 trillion yen. Yet energy consumption during the same timeframe has fallen and remained …

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Publication information: Article title: Going Green: Energy Conservation Is No Barrier to Japan's Economic Ambitions. Contributors: Jean, Grace V. - Author. Magazine title: National Defense. Volume: 93. Issue: 657 Publication date: August 2008. Page number: 52+. © 2009 National Defense Industrial Association. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group.

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