Japan’s norm localization and Its Climate Change Policy

Abstract

Climate Change is one of the global agendas that has received more interest in recent decades. One of the reasons why it has become the topic of discussion lately is because the international organization, namely The United Nations, promotes the agenda by spreading recognition and norm in the international community. Japan has been influenced by such agenda and norm that leads to its formulation of climate change policy. Japan always side with the United Nation to promote agreement about limiting greenhouse gases like Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. Moreover, Japan issues a policies in order to achieved targeting goal in those agreements. Political actors inside Japan promote the policy by linking the international agenda and norm with the beliefs or values that domestically held by Japanese people and already exist in the society.  This process is called Localization of existing norm. It is the way political actors in Japan make their people accept and support new values delivered from the international community which enables them to introduce their policies more smoothly.