The Co-benefits of Renewable Energy Policies in Japan: Barriers and Ways Forward

摘要

In recent years, many counties have intensified efforts to address the climate emergency. In Japan, these efforts have often built upon policies and plans to promote renewable energy that followed the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Further many of these policies and plans deliver important benefits beyond mitigating climate change such as reductions in air pollution. Achieving these benefits will require both a clear understanding of the magnitude of co-benefits and strategies for overcoming barriers to achieving them. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the policies that can deliver co-benefits from renewable energy in Japan; analyze the technical, social and political barriers to implementing those policies; present a simple method for quantifying co-benefits from those policies; and underline how a concept called Regional Circulating and Ecological Sphere (CES) can provide a useful framework for moving past key barriers.