ABSTRACT
Historical learning into Kitakyushu models In the past the iron and steel industry was a symbol of industrialization, supplying a wide range of industrial sectors with materials. By the beginning of the twentieth century Yawata, on the north coast of the present Kitakyushu area,
became the center of iron and steel production in Japan. Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 had forced China to pay a financial indemnity equivalent to about 15 percent of Japan’s gross national product (GNP) at that time. The indemnity was channeled into running Yawata’s government-owned iron and steel industry and providing privileged access to quality iron ore from China.1 The Yawata Iron and Steel Works (today’s Nippon Steel Corporation) began production in 1901 and remained government-owned until 1934.2 During the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, when an Asian nation defeated a European nation for the first time in modern history, Japan became a world military power. The Yawata Iron and Steel Works supported Japan’s military build-up, producing more than half of domestic steel output up to the late 1930s.3 On August 9, 1945, an US B-29 bomber was going to drop an atomic bomb on Kokura (part of the present Kitakyushu City), Japan’s large arsenal town, but found the site covered in clouds and turned west to the alternative target of Nagasaki. The hands of fate saved the lives of people there. At the end of World War II, however, the steel town of Yawata (part of the present Kitakyushu City) saw the widespread destruction of industrial infrastructure and suffering and chronic malnutrition among local residents. By 1947, a rising American fear of “communist expansionism” totally killed the spirit of the anti-fascist common cause shared between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies during World
Table 6.1 Kitakyushu’s transformation from previous experience to international environ mental business
1960s Kitakyushu located in one of the four largest industrial zones 1963 Fact-finding surveys on industrial pollution (started by Kitakyushu
residents) 1970 The chronic lung diseases of residents (reported) 1971 Kitakyushu pollution prevention ordinance (enacted) Mid-1970s Dredging Dokai Bay (completed) 1980 Sludge dredging at the river (completed) 1981 Kitakyushu’s environmental experts to Dalian (dispatched) 1987 Kōichi Sueyoshi (1987-2007) – Kitakyushu mayor (elected) Early 1990s Dramatic SOx emissions reduction 1990 United Nations Global 500 Award (received) 1992 United Nations Local Government Honors (received) 1993 Dalian Environmental Model Zone (proposed by Kitakyushu) 1995 China’s ODA request to Japan regarding the proposed Model Zone 1996 Japan’s decision to fund the Model Zone project 1996 Hibikinada Development Plan (environmental business) (publicized by
the city) 1997 Kitakyushu Eco-Town Project (approved by the national government) 2000 Kitakyushu Initiative for a Clean Environment (in partnership with the
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific to improve environmental management in the region)
2000s Kitakyushu Initiative Network with 62 cities in 18 Asian countries 2009 Action Plan of the Kitakyushu Eco-Model City (offsetting emissions
made in developing countries) 2010 Kitakyushu Asian Center for Low Carbon Society (established)
War II. Ironically, the beginning of the Cold War provided the foundation for Yawata’s revitalization. Once the Korean War broke in 1950, Japanese manufacturers received fresh orders for all the necessities of war. Yawata, which was the closest to Korea, put its steel plant into full operation to fill massive orders for steel building materials.4 Yawata Steel was the primary beneficiary of Japan’s postwar alliance with the United States (US). Its prosperity was a foreign policy success for the American administrators who helped rebuild Japan’s internal stability against a background of communist threats. Japan’s strategic importance to the US created greater room for its government’s maneuvers regarding neomercantilist practices. The steel industry in Japan became a main target for the implementation of industrial policy by the Japanese government. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) implemented a wide range of policies designed to strategically allocate funds to the steel industry.5 Japan’s raw steel output rose rapidly from 9.4 million tons in 1955 to 102 million tons in 1975. Its export ratio of total steel production also increased from 15 percent in 1950 to a high of 39.4 percent in 1976.6 During the first two decades of the US-Japan alliance, the US enjoyed a healthy balance of trade surplus with Japan. But by the late 1960s, Japan’s balance of payments began to turn positive, mostly with the US. In 1967 the US Congress introduced a bill to set import quotas for steel. To avoid the establishment of such a system, the Japanese steel industry set up a voluntary export restraint system.7 By the time the US returned from its failed Vietnam War, US-Japan trade conflicts had intensified, reflecting changes at the systemic level, namely that the American economic hegemony was declining. In 1971 the US ran a disastrous balance of payments, with a deficit of US$10.6 billion.8 Ironically, the Japanese miracle economy that postwar US policy had promoted now appeared to thwart the aspirations of thousands of American steel workers. Japan’s economic success had to bear the burden of pressure and criticism not only from outside Japan but also from within. Rapid development came at a heavy environmental cost. The industrial smoke was rich in dust and sulfur dioxide. During the high economic period of 1955-1965, air and water pollution worsened rapidly. In 1963 Kitakyushu was born in the midst of industrial pollution by the amalgamation of five cities: Moji, Kokura, Wakamatsu, Yahata, and Tobata. In the 1960s, Kitakyushu developed into one of the four largest industrial zones in Japan, accounting for over 5 percent of Japan’s industrial production. In those districts, many residents were surrounded by large factories involved in chemical, iron, and steel production. As early as 1950 it was a women’s association in the Nakabaru district (Nakabaru Women’s Association) of Tobata City (part of the present Kitakyushu City) that began to take environmental matters into its own hands. With the support of the Tobata City Council and administration, its spontaneous study groups successfully persuaded the Nihon Denso Power Plant to install a dust collector for the protection of local residents’ health and safety.9 In 1963 citizens’ groups began to conduct a series of fact-finding surveys on dust fall, smoke, and offensive odors and followed this through by continually demanding environmental risk reductions from the
factories and petitioning the city administration for improvements. In 1965, when women’s associations in the Tobata Ward of Kitakyushu produced a documentary film, “We Want Our Blue Sky Back,” the Shiroyama district of Kitakyushu indicated the worst air pollution on record in Japan, i.e., 80 tons of falling dust per month/km2 on average being produced by its industrial complex.10 In 1966 the Bay of Dokai in Kitakyushu recorded a chemical oxygen demand (COD) high of 36 mg/l, and was called the “dead sea.”11 The bay was highly contaminated by industrial and domestic wastewater and this environmental pollution progressed to such an extent that even coliform bacteria could not survive. Yet the MITI encouraged large-scale mergers for greater international competitiveness, resulting in the merger of Yawata and Fuji in 1970.12 By then, the chronic lung diseases local residents had developed were aggravated by air pollution. The merged Nippon Steel was by far the biggest local employer (employing nearly 50,000 people), but its advantageous position was about to dissolve due to popular public pressures, which the legendary women’s associations had nurtured with other grassroots groups. In 1971, as a Kitakyushu pollution prevention ordinance was enacted, the city created the Environmental Pollution Control Bureau to implement a range of environmental regulations. In 1972, as a full-scale waste incineration facility was completed, a pollution prevention agreement was reached between the municipal government and 54 industrial plants in the city. In the mid1970s, Dokai Bay was dredged; a total of 350,000 cubic meters of polluted sludge, containing more than 30 parts per million (ppm) of mercury, was removed. The total operation cost 2 billion yen (US$18 million), of which 71 percent was borne by the Kitakyushu business sector and 29 percent by the municipal government.13 In addition to the industrial pollution, many houses had been illegally built along the city’s main river, further contributing to river water pollution. The sludge dredging and removal project at the river was completed in 1980. Following the municipal regulations, each corporate firm developed its own environmental risk reduction plan to implement various countermeasures. Sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions from steel works in Kitakyushu, for example, dropped from 27,575 tons/year in 1970 to 600 tons/year in 1990.14 In collaboration with these groups and local business, a system, known as the “Kitakyushu Method” of overcoming the environmental problems, was adopted by the municipal government. Since 1973, the municipal government has spent US$4.6 billion on pollution control and prevention, with the corporate sector spending a further US$2.1 billion.15 Kitakyushu developed, through lesson-drawing, its own local human capital for decentralized environmental cooperation. From the viewpoint of its involvement in international environmental cooperation, the city was well equipped, with both environmental risk-management skills and pollution prevention technologies or cleaner production technology (CPT), to share their accumulated assets with others.
