ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses Japan’s national energy choice and the climate change reduction target from the perspective of international comparison. First, the Japanese climate change policy and energy policy after the Kyoto protocol is discussed. There was a great deal of progress during and after the Kyoto Protocol in both climate change and energy policies, especially nuclear power generation and renewable energy. Both policies have a common characteristic, top-down. That is the reason why the national campaign is the key to the public risk perception of climate change and energy choice. We discuss with the mass media coverage of those issues. The second topic to be examined is the comparison of climate change and energy choice policies. This media attitude leads the public to think of these two unrelated policies as being related. relate those two targets as related policy topics. Then, we move on to the results of the public opinion survey in Japan and four European countries. When comparing the results of the public opinion survey in Japan with the results of four European countries, the author finds similar tendencies: (a) negative responses to fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and nuclear power generation, (b) positive responses to wind and solar power.
