In the sweltering late summer heat of Kyoto, I was most grateful I had the company of Captain Stag.
But this was no pith-helmeted adventurer, bristling moustache and pink gin at the ready. Rather my companion was a small, zippy Japanese bicycle, and jolly useful he was in covering the city‘s streets in the soup-like heat.
I wasn’t alone in choosing this eco-friendly form of transport to pootle through the little streets, as elderly housewives and smart young businessman whizzed by on their own little two wheelers.
This got me thinking about this great city, its green credentials and those of Japan.
The former imperial capital of Japan and justly famous for its splendid temples (a mere 2,000 or so), Kyoto has more recently become closely associated with a more contemporary issue, namely the global fight against climate change.
Finally waking up to the warnings of climate scientists, in 1997 the world’s leading polluters gathered here, seeking to secure a binding agreement to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
The resulting agreement, commonly referred to as the Kyoto Protocol has since then been ratified by over 180 countries, including all developed nations (with the very notable exception of the United States) and Kyoto became a byword for progressive action towards a cleaner, greener future.
A decade on from Kyoto and progress towards the targets set is still painfully slow. Once more Japan is in the lime (or green?) light, having just hosted the annual G8 nations summit, placing climate change high on the agenda.
At the Hokkaido summit the Japanese proudly showed off their spectacular volcanic surroundings to their guests, but what impression did their own record in preserving their natural environment and tackling climate change leave?
Is this crowded country of 120 million leading the world towards an environmentally sustainable future?
Their ambitions are impressive, with (now ex-) Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announcing before the summit a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% by 2050,
though of course in practice they have a long way to go.
In Kyoto’s famous Ryoan-ji temple I came across a sign which I though rather neatly reflected the Japanese attitude towards the natural world:
But this was no pith-helmeted adventurer, bristling moustache and pink gin at the ready. Rather my companion was a small, zippy Japanese bicycle, and jolly useful he was in covering the city‘s streets in the soup-like heat.
I wasn’t alone in choosing this eco-friendly form of transport to pootle through the little streets, as elderly housewives and smart young businessman whizzed by on their own little two wheelers.
This got me thinking about this great city, its green credentials and those of Japan.
The former imperial capital of Japan and justly famous for its splendid temples (a mere 2,000 or so), Kyoto has more recently become closely associated with a more contemporary issue, namely the global fight against climate change.
Finally waking up to the warnings of climate scientists, in 1997 the world’s leading polluters gathered here, seeking to secure a binding agreement to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
The resulting agreement, commonly referred to as the Kyoto Protocol has since then been ratified by over 180 countries, including all developed nations (with the very notable exception of the United States) and Kyoto became a byword for progressive action towards a cleaner, greener future.
A decade on from Kyoto and progress towards the targets set is still painfully slow. Once more Japan is in the lime (or green?) light, having just hosted the annual G8 nations summit, placing climate change high on the agenda.
At the Hokkaido summit the Japanese proudly showed off their spectacular volcanic surroundings to their guests, but what impression did their own record in preserving their natural environment and tackling climate change leave?
Is this crowded country of 120 million leading the world towards an environmentally sustainable future?
Their ambitions are impressive, with (now ex-) Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announcing before the summit a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% by 2050,
though of course in practice they have a long way to go.
In Kyoto’s famous Ryoan-ji temple I came across a sign which I though rather neatly reflected the Japanese attitude towards the natural world:
“[Ryoan-ji is] renowned throughout the world as the ultimate example of kare sansi, or ‘my landscape’ style rock garden, in which nature is compressed and given abstract expression within the confines of a very narrow space“.
Can extend this to Japan as a whole?
Japan often seems a country at war with, or at least under siege from, the natural world and its more violent manifestations: typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis. And their response, in this mountainous country, appears to build, build, build, on the flat coastal plains they are squeezed into.
To the visitor it can seem like the entire country is made of concrete, passing through gigantic urban centres, like the south of Honshu, where one city seems to merge into another. Here, in the land of ‘salary man’, business is the new emperor and profit is the new creed. Heavy industry scars the coastline and naked development runs riot.
But outside of here, up in the ‘Japanese Alps’ or in the wilds of Hokkaido, it is still possible to lose yourself in the wild. Many Japanese revere these places and great efforts are made to protect them. Here the Shinto emphasis on working harmoniously with nature remains.
When it comes to their relationship with the natural world, perhaps for many Japanese the religious, or spiritual, influences still run deep.
In the zen gardens of Kyoto, the urban dwellers are given an idealised impression, an artificial world where nature is scrubbed-up nature and every blade of grass, every piece of gravel is placed according to how it should be.
Maybe this explains the extraordinary number of zoos and aquariums. Every town, every city we’ve visited seems to proudly boast at least one caged animal-related theme park.
Can extend this to Japan as a whole?
Japan often seems a country at war with, or at least under siege from, the natural world and its more violent manifestations: typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis. And their response, in this mountainous country, appears to build, build, build, on the flat coastal plains they are squeezed into.
To the visitor it can seem like the entire country is made of concrete, passing through gigantic urban centres, like the south of Honshu, where one city seems to merge into another. Here, in the land of ‘salary man’, business is the new emperor and profit is the new creed. Heavy industry scars the coastline and naked development runs riot.
But outside of here, up in the ‘Japanese Alps’ or in the wilds of Hokkaido, it is still possible to lose yourself in the wild. Many Japanese revere these places and great efforts are made to protect them. Here the Shinto emphasis on working harmoniously with nature remains.
When it comes to their relationship with the natural world, perhaps for many Japanese the religious, or spiritual, influences still run deep.
In the zen gardens of Kyoto, the urban dwellers are given an idealised impression, an artificial world where nature is scrubbed-up nature and every blade of grass, every piece of gravel is placed according to how it should be.
Maybe this explains the extraordinary number of zoos and aquariums. Every town, every city we’ve visited seems to proudly boast at least one caged animal-related theme park.
Animals and birds are seen as cute and cuddly, but to be kept at a safe distance, preferably behind bars.
The Japanese are meticulously clean; in the hot summer heat everyone seems to have their own little towels to mop their brows and regularly wipe their hands, and throughout the year people often venture outside wearing surgical masks to prevent infection.
The Japanese are meticulously clean; in the hot summer heat everyone seems to have their own little towels to mop their brows and regularly wipe their hands, and throughout the year people often venture outside wearing surgical masks to prevent infection.
Where foreigners are sometimes feared for their supposedly lax approach towards hygiene, goodness knows what they think of animals.
Their love of nature, their shy curiosity, their tendency towards the artificial, the cellophane-wrapped, the air-conditioned - this all helps to explain the phenomenon of the Japanese tourist.
Their love of nature, their shy curiosity, their tendency towards the artificial, the cellophane-wrapped, the air-conditioned - this all helps to explain the phenomenon of the Japanese tourist.
Left unbounded mass tourism is strangling the very places they love - visitors often complain about the tendency here to build ugly hotels and shops next to beauty spots.
We witnessed this in Toya Ko, with hideous hotels despoiling the natural beauty of Lake Toya and, more recently, at the famous Miyajima, where the Itsukashima temple's famous O-Tori gate, ‘one of the three best views of Japan’ ™, seemingly rises out of the sea - an extraordinary sight.
We witnessed this in Toya Ko, with hideous hotels despoiling the natural beauty of Lake Toya and, more recently, at the famous Miyajima, where the Itsukashima temple's famous O-Tori gate, ‘one of the three best views of Japan’ ™, seemingly rises out of the sea - an extraordinary sight.
Were it not for the monumentally ugly line of hotels scarring the hillside directly behind it.
But perhaps the most apparent manifestation of excessive consumption, and the damage this causes, is the incredible amount of waste this country appears to generate.
But perhaps the most apparent manifestation of excessive consumption, and the damage this causes, is the incredible amount of waste this country appears to generate.
After a day strolling through a Japanese city, I find myself weighed down with a huge mountain of packaging, simply from visiting a few food outlets.
Everything is sealed in packaging. Often you find yourself struggling with an item of food, from sushi to bananas which, to the Western mind at least seems over-elaborately and excessively wrapped.
Everything is sealed in packaging. Often you find yourself struggling with an item of food, from sushi to bananas which, to the Western mind at least seems over-elaborately and excessively wrapped.
It becomes fiendishly difficult to penetrate some wrappers; for example I defy anyone to successively unwrap a triangular rice ball in the manner in which it was designed.
For the budget-restricted traveller you can’t escape the world of 7/11s; individual grocers or other small food shops are scare, and hence you become part of the problem, adding yet more to the 25 billion disposable chopsticks the Japanese throw away every year.
So a lot of work to do then.
But it’s not all green gloom. I’d rather be optimistic about this astonishing nation. The Japanese may do many things to excess but this can bring advantages as well. Take their fantastic public transport system, fully integrated and boasting superfast Shinkansen trains that negate the need to fly.
So a lot of work to do then.
But it’s not all green gloom. I’d rather be optimistic about this astonishing nation. The Japanese may do many things to excess but this can bring advantages as well. Take their fantastic public transport system, fully integrated and boasting superfast Shinkansen trains that negate the need to fly.
And consider their incredible postwar economic recovery, which has allowed them to sit firmly amongst the leading industrial nations in the world. Time and again Japan has been looked to be its peers for technological innovations and solutions to the problems posed by a burgeoning world population.
Witness their many inventive answers to the considerable problems posed by dense urban living. Thanks to these their cities, with their huge populations, are civilised, clean and ordered. They work; something we can all learn from.
Japan has woken up to climate change. Like a salaryman after too much Suntory Whisky and Okonomi-Yaki pizza this country is already witnessing the terrible effects of their over-consumption, be it more and devastating extreme weather, the effects of over-fishing or rising oil prices.
They are beginning to realise they have to live within their means. And if any country can do this, Japan can
Rightly or not, our great leaders are pinning their hopes on technology as a way out of climate catastrophe, and we they are going down this route we need Japan, with its wonderful capacity for innovation and resourcefulness at the forefront.
So here’s to future Captain Stags…
So here’s to future Captain Stags…
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