ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the state of local capacity-building for climate change countermeasures in Japan and Japanese local government involvement in international environmental cooperation. The aim is to draw an overall picture of sub-national participation in climate change policy and international environmental cooperation by highlighting the governing capacity gaps between pioneering local governments and other local governments. Climate change policy needs to be led by both global strategies and national mandates in an integrated way; however, climate change impacts are manifested locally and their adaptive capacity is determined by local conditions. I claim that a possible source of cohesion for policy integration lies in the decentralized role of local governments, for they occupy a strategic position since they straddle both the division between global collective action and national self-interest and that between the international and the national. In one respect, local governments have a potential to reconnect local action with national policy and turn global strategies into local actions for problem-solving. This strategic position enables local governments to take up a key role in the decentralized functions of international cooperation. Yet the necessary precondition for local governments to efficiently and effectively participate in decentralized policy coordination lies in their governing capacities. The chapter first lays out the basic components of local capacity for decentralized policy-making and assesses current local capacity in view of Japan’s climate policy. The second section examines the state of Japanese local governments’ capacity in international environmental cooperation and assesses the issues arising from decentralized international cooperation. The bulk of the data employed in the study is derived from existing up-to-date government databases. The data suggests that only the largest municipalities, as well as prefectures, have the governing capacity to develop a comprehensive approach to climate adaptation and mitigation, while medium-sized municipalities have the potential to take a participatory approach to climate policy. It argues that some pioneering localities realize their potential to take initiatives under political leadership but most localities act in a piecemeal fashion according to clear national-level guidance. It also suggests that financial capacity is significantly related to international environmental cooperation, but factors internal to unexpectedly active localities require further examination.
