Corporate Lobbying Delays Japan Climate Policies

By Raine Jenkins

SNA (Sydney) — Although the government is introducing plans to address the climate crisis, concrete measures are proving slow to appear as a consequence of corporate lobbying, according to some nongovernmental organizations.

Japan is currently ranked as the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, with almost 80% of its electricity deriving from fossil fuel sources.

According to Energy Tracker Asia, an energy-related news and information website, the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) has been the fifth-largest global institutional investor in coal. Additionally, over 40% of the country’s fossil fuel funds have come from government policy institutions.

In this context, the Kishida administration’s Green Transformation (GX) roadmap and other efforts are often being hindered and delayed by the lobbying of big business organizations, which are concerned that the required changes will be prohibitively expensive, especially for the small and medium firms which constitute their suppliers.

UK-based research organization InfluenceMap released in 2020 a report detailing Japanese companies’ stances on climate-related policies. In a recent press conference held in Tokyo, Dylan Tanner, co-founder and executive director of InfluenceMap, expanded on this theme, warning that “corporate influencing has diluted and delayed policy.” He cited the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) as a prominent culprit.

Tanner explained that Keidanren–which has many members from the electric power, automobile, and fossil fuel industries–is not only a powerful lobbying organization, but has also acted as a “central negotiation point” on climate policy for at least two decades.

This means that the government is routinely exposed to the voices of those cautioning against bold steps to address climate concerns, even when such measures would serve the public interest.

In 2019, for example, Keidanren argued against government proposals to reduce carbon-related emissions by 80% with a target date of 2050. In its own policy proposal, Keidanren wrote “the long-term strategy of Japan should not compete for the level of numerical targets, but it should indicate an ambitious stance ‘towards goals such as the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement.’”

The precise methods by which the preferences of big business are incorporated into government policies is generally hidden from the public. The processes are not open to outside scrutiny, and very little in the way of disclosure is required by Japanese law.

Japanese automakers, however, are understood to be among those most deeply implicated in corporate lobbying against robust climate policies, often operating through the influential Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA).

The case of Toyota has become widely known among those who follow this industry, but InfluenceMap has also highlights cases such as that of Suzuki.

Suzuki Motor, the well-known motorcycle maker, is one of the worst companies in the world regarding its degree of climate policy engagement, according to a ranking platform run by InfluenceMap. Indeed, it scored a grade of E+, making it the lowest-ranked automobile company globally.

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