ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the opportunities and constraints of Japan's energy transition challenge which stem from interrelated but still mostly uncoordinated top-down and bottom-up initiatives. Community ownership of renewable energy projects is considered as an example of asset-based community development in Japan to realize low carbon community concepts, an approach that also promises to encourage new avenues for regional rejuvenation and strengthening local democracy by linking community resilience to improvements in self-reliance and local decision-making. Public policy in Japan is traditionally centre-led, made from the top-down and directly linked to the continued concentration of financial decision-making power in the central state that exerts strong distributive, redistributive and regulatory powers. Moreover, there are vested interests of powerful interest groups in the energy industry and related government agencies affected. The chapter focuses on new governance arrangements that asset-based community development initiatives in Japan would require to engage more effectively with central government approaches to the energy transition challenge.
