3. Climate Change (13th in SDGs): this aims to promote international cooperation
and respond to climate change, acknowledging that they are interconnected at the
root of social systems and must be systematically resolved through strategic
policy development.
These are global issues that require the development and implementation of
policies that are based on mutually beneficial international cooperation.
The rapid progress of global warming and the higher frequencies of abnormal
weather highlight the urgency of establishing multidimensional cooperation and
international institutional design to realize a low-carbon society for the long term.
The Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016, and the US withdrawal from the
Agreement in 2017 has strengthened this urgency. The Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean nations (i.e., CJK countries) have set its own voluntary goal (INDC); this
is not sufficient to address this global issue. Cooperation toward wide-area,
low-carbon societies, including by Japan, China, and South Korea, is essential.
While Japan possesses the world’s highest level of low-carbon technology patents,
it lags in innovation by entering the vast Asian market and cannot fully contribute to
the creation of a green economy and the expected environmental pollution problem.
Therefore, it is essential to position the required significant reduction in CO 2 as a
strategic issue shared by all of East Asia and build a wide-area, circulating,
low-carbon society created by actors across different dimensions.
Fig. 1.17 Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations in 2015
34
W. Zhou
and respond to climate change, acknowledging that they are interconnected at the
root of social systems and must be systematically resolved through strategic
policy development.
These are global issues that require the development and implementation of
policies that are based on mutually beneficial international cooperation.
The rapid progress of global warming and the higher frequencies of abnormal
weather highlight the urgency of establishing multidimensional cooperation and
international institutional design to realize a low-carbon society for the long term.
The Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016, and the US withdrawal from the
Agreement in 2017 has strengthened this urgency. The Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean nations (i.e., CJK countries) have set its own voluntary goal (INDC); this
is not sufficient to address this global issue. Cooperation toward wide-area,
low-carbon societies, including by Japan, China, and South Korea, is essential.
While Japan possesses the world’s highest level of low-carbon technology patents,
it lags in innovation by entering the vast Asian market and cannot fully contribute to
the creation of a green economy and the expected environmental pollution problem.
Therefore, it is essential to position the required significant reduction in CO 2 as a
strategic issue shared by all of East Asia and build a wide-area, circulating,
low-carbon society created by actors across different dimensions.
Fig. 1.17 Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations in 2015
34
W. Zhou