Building Multi-Stakeholder Climate Governance: Lessons from Japan’s Local Responses to Climate Change

Located in Asia’s Far East, Japan is experiencing the impacts of climate change, including higher summer temperatures and an increase in the number of heatstroke patients, changes in rainfall patterns, and more severe typhoons and floods. These current circumstances call for strengthening climate change policies, including the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Strengthening climate change policies requires not only national but also local government policies. Furthermore, how should efficient partnerships be built to enhance climate change policies not only among local governments, which are the policymakers, but also among companies, which are the implementing bodies, research institutions with various research seeds, and citizens, who are the ultimate policy decision-makers (voters)? In response to the above research question, this study conducted a literature review and interviews with leading cases in Japan to obtain insights for regions with various attributes. In this study presentation, we hope to share the essence of these insights with researchers around the world.