“Japan Climate Curation” — launched a weekly newsletter on Climate Change.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on 5/2/2022 on Linkedin.
Hello, my name is Hiroyasu Ichikawa ( ichi for English), a Japan-based media consultant who has been passionate to explore climate change issues lately.
I am launching a Linkedin newsletter titled Japan Climate Curation, a weekly curated list of articles around “climate change” from Japan. As an introduction, I would like to explain (1) why I am starting this and (2)what kind of content I am going to put together in the upcoming newsletter.
Why I am starting a newsletter about climate change
Since I became independent as a consultant back in 2010, I have been fascinated with the idea of news curation, particularly introducing newly emerging ideas and trends from overseas into the Japanese context. I attended conferences and wrote blogs, columns, and a book while doing research & consulting work.
Last summer, I began to feel that there is a big gap between Japan and other countries in terms of the quantity and quality of climate change media coverage. Clearly, I have felt that the amount of coverage in Japan is low. At the same time, natural disasters related to climate change were occurring frequently around the world. In the meantime, many innovative entrepreneurs and startups who tackle with climate change, known as climate-tech, have been emerging around the world.
On January 1st of this year I decided to take the plunge and enroll in Terra.do, a 12-week online course on climate change. Through the course, I was able to learn an overview of climate change, ranging from basic science, energy issues, and various solutions such as solar & wind power, electric vehicles, carbon removal, ESG, carbon pricing, etc. The like-minded cohort friends and instructors from all over the world that I have been able to meet through the course are a very precious treasure.
I was the only participant from Japan among about 100 of my peers. As a non-native English speaker, it took a lot of courage to voice my opinions and ideas. On the other hand, it was also an opportunity for me to realize how little the climate situations in Japan were understood in such an international learning community, and also how little we speak up about climate effort from Japan.
I committed to two projects as my goals that I set early in the course. The first is to distribute a weekly newsletter in Japanese that delivers news about climate change from overseas. The second is a weekly newsletter in English about Japan on climate change as reported in Japan.
Last weekend, I was able to complete the Terra.do’s course, and also I could manage to start a Japanese newsletter “Climate Curation” (using a platform, called Substack) at the beginning of April thanks to the peer pressure 🙂 I got from the community.
What kind of content I am going to put together in the newsletter.
In future issues of the newsletter, I plan to hand-pick news articles on a wide range of topics, including climate-tech, ESG, energy, EVs, activism, featured local stories, etc., during the week from various news media.
For example…
[1] Asia’s nuclear power dilemma: Ukraine war drives energy turnarounds~From Japan to Singapore, Russia sanctions and carbon-zero targets push states to reconsider nuclear energy (Nikkei Asia 4/20)
*Well-balanced, resourceful overview of the situation around Asia’s nuclear power adaptation. The article starts with the following line. “Who could possibly resist a power source that “emits 70 times less CO2 than coal, 40 times less than gas, four times less than solar energy, two times less than hydroelectricity and the same amount as wind energy?”
[2] Japan’s SMFG, Tepco, Mitsubishi face activist climate votes at AGMs (Reuter 4/13)
*Activist investors are increasingly turning their attention to Japanese companies, using resolutions that have been deployed in Europe and the United States to push companies and banks away from investing in, or financing, fossil fuel infrastructure. This year marks the 3rd year for this kind of shareholder activism on climate change. Original Press Release & the details of the proposal from FoF Japan.
[3] Japan has a chequered record on climate change ~ Prepared for disaster, unprepared for climate change(The Economist 2021/12/11)
*It’s a bit old, but one of the paragraphs in the article was “a-ha” moment, a convincing argument regarding why climate change has not been considered by the public. “Japan’s history of disasters has made it a laggard on climate change. With so many old hazards, the new ones have not generated as much urgency as elsewhere, laments Koizumi Shinjiro, a former environment minister. The Fukushima meltdown has kept environmentalists focused on anti-nuclear campaigns, rather than climate change.”
[4] A climate movie only abroad? — “Weathering With You” (2019)
*I recently watched the 2019 hit anime movie, and noticed a difference in viewers’ reactions between Japan and other countries. I believe it was the same pattern applied to Netflix movie “Don’t Look Up” .
*Here is a quote from the director Makoto Shinkai in the UN Information Center blog (2020/1/31)
“When it comes to Japanese audiences, I don’t think most people associate climate change with them. Even at the post-screening teach-in, I was rarely asked about environmental issues by the Japanese audience. The Japanese media also did not ask about climate change, perhaps thinking that it was not the place for such questions. However, in the U.S., Europe such as the U.K. and France, and India, the main question journalists ask is almost always about climate change. I felt that the audience’s impressions were to some extent in proportion to the journalists’ attitudes. For example, in Europe, I believe that consumers are no longer choosing products from companies that are not eco-conscious (environmentally conscious). In such countries, the message that audiences read from the film will inevitably change. It seems that almost no Japanese audiences connected this film with global warming, which I think reflects the situation in each country.”
[5] Postcards from Kamikatsu, Japan’s ‘zero-waste’ town (The Washington Post 4/27 )
*It’s a cool & inspiring visual storytelling from Kamikatsu, a Japanese town of about 1,500 residents that is on an ambitious path toward a zero-waste life and is 80%+ of its way toward that goal by 2030.
So, that’s it for the inaugural issue. Please feel free to comment and let me know what kind of topics, angles, or content you would like to see in the future!
For those who are interested in my Japanese newsletter (curating mainly overseas topics), please subscribe from the link below.
https://socialcompany.substack.com/
Please follow me on Linkedin and my newly-created English Twitter account for “Climate Curation”
ichi (Hiroyasu Ichikawa)
