ABSTRACT
This conclusion details the assessment of the inquiry into the ethical essence of Japan’s global environmental policies. The analysis has shown that the policies have not employed an adequate ethical framework from the perspective of both Western and Japanese environmental principles. Environmental agendas are a relatively new concept for most countries. Japan’s domestic environmental policy was only legislated in 1972 and came as the result of pressure from citizens at the grass-roots social level who were alarmed about the deteriorating condition of their environment. Their concerns were triggered by the nation’s catastrophic environmental pollution crises resulting from the government’s determined and narrowly focused drive towards economic development. The Japanese global environmental policy came into existence in the 1980s, when the country’s economy was growing significantly, and Japan was benefiting from the enormous amounts of raw materials that it was importing and in which it was singularly lacking. While the domestic environmental policy was brought about by local social pressures, Japan’s global environmental initiatives were the result of a global environmental awareness, especially among industrialized nations. Japan quickly adopted sustainable development as the aim and philosophy of the initiatives, but, at the same time, the policy accommodated business operations; it was designed not to jeopardize them, but to support their sustainability. Japan’s global environmental policy initiatives present contradictory features. For instance, the policy has shown a positive responsibility, such as the setting up of the environmentally related ODA programme designed to assist developing countries, and the hosting of the United Nation’s Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in 1997. However, in spite of affirmative commitments from that time, a number of government policies, including those in the three case studies, do not uphold the Japanese promises to protect and conserve the environment and to ensure the sustainable use of world resources.
