Adaptation

1) It looks like Japan will be adapting for various things with Climate Change. From natural disasters to food resources. Adapting for natural disasters will be the biggest and most difficult adaption for climate change. Due to the fact that if they do not do enough, they would have just wasted their effort and money. Adapting to the water-relating disasters is their prioritized concern. With Climate Change intensified storm surges and floods will be big problems for the city of Tokyo. Japan plans to have adaptive measures for their facilities and adaptive measures to handle crisis management. By adding dams, flood spaces, and rainwater storage facilities floods can be quite controlled. Developing new regulations and guidance will make things easier for crisis management. In times of crisis there may be incidents where roads will need to be secured and flood warnings must be issued.

http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_natcom/submitted_natcom/items/4903.php

2) a. With the Climate Change happening Japan is highly prone to diseases. Uganda has plans for a project that will help control pests and disease. Part of this project will be beneficial to the country of Japan. As the geographical landscape changes to Climate Change Japan will have higher density of population in certain areas. Uganda also recognizes their risks with higher density of population and has set out goals to complete their project to increase control with pests and diseases. The plan involves investigation of the relationships between Climate Change, diseases, pests, and herbal plants. They will develop and implement strategies to effectively control climate change related outbreaks. By following this project, Japan will be able control, prevent, and protect future areas that will be prone to being affected by Climate Change.

b. Uganda is a semi-arid country. Droughts are frequent and prolonged; with Climate Change, droughts will only be more severe. They developed a project in order to cope with these more frequent and more severe droughts. The project will higher their coping capacity and prepare them for difficult agricultural seasons. Their goal is to basically obtain more water for both storage and use. Japan however cannot follow Uganda’s project. They cannot storage and harvest water because of their minimal landscape. If they store more in the mountains they will spend loads of energy to keep the water from freezing. If they do find space near their cities, it will be highly prone to being contaminated from natural disasters. Therefore Japan must look at alternatives in order to gather more water.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/napa/uga01.pdf

3) Asia plans to increase their livestock production. Interestingly they want to breed their livestock for greater tolerance to temperatures. They will also do the same to their fisheries, so the fish can cope with high water temperature. They will categories that each animal fit into and they gather the strongest animals in order to breed them. It follows Darwinism in terms of “survival of the fittest.” Japan is known to have the best beef in the world. Kobe beef has a texture that is similar to marble. Their beef is impossible to get anywhere else but in the country of Japan itself. It will be interesting to see if they will begin exporting their exclusive beef in order to gather other resources in the future.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-5.html

Marble like texture Kobe Beef

4) Japan is a country that should definitely follow both. Mitigating is almost the same as adapting when they research for alternative energy sources. Because that the oil, natural gases, and coal are running out by finding an alternative energy sources they are adapting. Without this adaption Japan will have to look into other countries in order to gather resources which is not ideal. By adapting they are ensuring survival whether Climate Change is happening or not and we all know Climate Change is happening. Although there are obstacles to overcome when adapting it will eventually come to the benefit of my country. I know that they are developed enough to involve in both adapting and mitigating for future Climate Change. It is just one of those decisions that can greatly benefit a country if they can do it. Why wait until something severe happens just to look in hindsight that adapting was something that they should have done?

Tidal Power for alternative energy source in Japan

Mitigation

1) The Kyoto Protocol seeks to reduce the emissions of CO2 from several countries that signed onto the plan. By exceeding the limit given to said country a fine is cited. Japan ratified the Kyoto Protocol on June 4, 2002. As a developed country Japan must reduce their emissions to not have to pay a fine [1].

A nuclear power plant of Japan

2) Japan greatly relies on nuclear energy since the 1970s. Coal supplies 27% of their energy, 26% comes from gas, 24% comes from nuclear, 13% from oil, 8% from hydro, and 2% from wind and solar energy. Japan has almost no natural resources for fossil fuels, they rely on other countries to obtain their import. To divert this necessity they explored other sources of energy such as nuclear. Due to seismic activities and tsunami waves at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant, nuclear reactors overheated. The Fukushima disaster is about one-tenth as bad as the Chernobyl disaster. Since the disaster the Japanese government quickly looked for alternatives. Rather than importing more fossil fuel they decided to look at wind energy. After the earthquake and tsunamis that hit Fukushima wind farms were quickly back online. They are nearly earthquake proof and provide renewable energy. Japan also announced that they will being experimenting with Tidal and Wave power in the year 2013 [2].

A tsunami crashing into Fukushima Daiichi.

3) Japan is drawing a close on their atomic policies. Chances of Nuclear meltdowns are quite low but a catastrophic meltdown will follow with regret. Because of the Fukushima disaster, Japan changed their energy policies and other countries are following the example of Japan. The nuclear power plants of Japan account for 4,696 MW of power, to put into perspective, 46MW is enough for 30,000 households [2]. With the new energy policies wind is expected to produce 1,000 MW of power for Japan.  Mainly the energy policies want to stop using nuclear power and less the burning of fossil fuels with their emissions [3].

[1] “Status of Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2012.  http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php

[2] Shadbolt, Peter. “Japan and Energy: What’s the alternative.” CNN, March 31, 2011. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/03/24/japan.alternatives/index.html

[3] Inajima, Tsuyoshi. Hirokawa, Takashi. Okada, Yuji. “Japan Draws Curtain on Nuclear Energy Following Germany.” Bloomberg, September 14, 2012. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-14/japan-draws-curtain-on-nuclear-energy-following-germany.html

Climate Change Impacts

1) Based on the past Atmospheric Oceanic Global Circulation Models, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change they possess accurate predictions of climate and precipitations of Asia. East Asia is predicted to have more hot days with longer lasting heat waves. The warming appears to be a lot more severe during the winter. The maximum and minimum will increase in temperatures; less extreme cold days and more hot days. Extreme rainfall and winds are predicted for the Monsoonal seasons, but less rainfall days. [1]

(a) The ensemble mean change in withdrawal date of the summer rainy season between the MMD-A1B projections in 2081 to 2100 as compared with the 1981 to 2000 period in the 20C3M simulations. A positive value indicates a later withdrawal date in the A1B scenario. Units are 5 days. (b) Fraction of the models projecting a positive difference in withdrawal date. (Kitoh and Uchiyama, 2006).

http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-4-3-6-east-asia.html

2) Asia is prone to many environmental changes and weather disasters due to climate change. Glacier melt in the Himalayas will increase flooding and decrease river flows. Population increase along with higher standards of living will decrease fresh water available in large basins. Crops in East and South-East Asia can rise 20% and can decrease up to 30% in Central and South Asia. There are certainly both pros and cons of Climate Change, but because of the rise in population and growth that humans develop society the cons are much worse then the pros. [2]

3) The AOGCM’s suggest three main impacts with high confidence due to Climate Change. The melting of glaciers will induce sea level rise and with this rise, marine and coastal life are going to be affected. About a million of the population living on the coast are at risk with increased flooding occurrences. Along with sea level rise there will be sea intrusion into river run-offs decreasing river run-off lengths. Water temperatures will increase and expand natural habitat of bacteria increasing the risk of diarrhoeal disease. Climate Change will also affect the growth and development of Asia. The race and competition for natural resources will impede urbanization, industrialism, and economic development. Water problems will also be quite difficult to sustain the current and expansion for the future of Asia. [3]

4) In Asia, mortality and morbidity rates are expected to increase due to Climate Change. South East Asia is expected to have an increase in diarrhoea and malnutrition and reach it’s zenith in the year 2030. China and India will be at greater risk with dengue fever. [4] Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is transmitted by mosquitoes. It causes high fever along with fatigue, muscle pains, joint pains, and head pains. In some cases dengue fever can develop into dengue hemorrhagic fever where bleeding can occur and threaten life. [5]

Air quality in Asia is already questionable; with the rise in temperature heat stress and smog will further become problematic for the population. Cardiovascular and respiratory illness in Asia will continue to spread. [4] In Japan, the majority of the population is affected seasonally with allergies from Japanese cedar pollen. These allergies are so intense that during the Spring, tourist will see people wearing masks everywhere. The rise in temperature will result in increased risk of Japanese Cedar Pollen Disease. [6]

Japanese Cedar Trees’ Pollen intensity

Japanese Trees’ Pollen carving through the forest.

Works Cited

a) Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller. “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

[1]http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-4.html

[2] http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/spmsspm-c-8-asia.html

[3] http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-es.html

[4] http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-4-5.html

b) “Dengue Fever.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Nov. 0000. [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002350/

c) “Allergic to Pollen? If So, You’re Like 15 Million People in Japan.” NIPPONIA, 15 June 2002. [6] http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia21/en/trend/index.html

Japan’s Contribution to Climate Change

ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt

The Keeling Curve represents the Carbon Dioxide Concentration (ppm) per year. Created by using Excel and data from ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt

The graph below is the Total Fossil Fuel Emissions for the United States, China, Japan, India, Kenya, and Italy. It was also created by using Excel with data from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/

Japan’s Emissions of CO2

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/jap.html

1) a. It is actually quite interesting to see the total amount of CO2 emissions. I am surprised at the level of CO2 they are actually emitting. Japan’s CO2 emissions are a little over 11% in comparison to the U.S. and China. We can see that solids were ranked first until the early 1960s, when they were completely dependent on foreign oil.

b. Notice the spikes in the total emissions about the 1960s to 1970s. During of which they had a huge economic boom. They were ranked 2nd right behind the U.S. in GNP. However in the early ’70s Japan’s energy source has become completely dependent on imported petroleum, it is why we see the liquid emissions decrease for a short term. Also during the 1980s they relied more heavily on telecommunications and computer jobs rather than manufacturing and mining jobs, which is why we see a trend of liquids decreasing in emissions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/jap.html

2) a. Comparing the most recent per capita value of Japan to the United States, it is half of the U.S. There are a few variables effecting the lower per capita value of Japan. First the population, there are much fewer people living Japan compared to the U.S. Therefore there is not much of a need to sustain energy for the population. Next is dependency on foreign oil. Japan has found alternative energy with Nuclear power plants that leaves no carbon footprint at all. However in 2011, the seismic activities have led them stray away from this alternative fuel source.

b. Based on the data from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2008.cap, Japan is ranked 39 out of 215 countries. The United States is ranked at number 12 of out 215.

c. Japan is ranked quite high on this list. Being on the top half is a sad achievement. However, I also see that most of these high ranking countries are in continual development. I’m not saying that we need to emit loads of CO2 to develop, but it does allow us to develop much more rapidly by doing so. Looking at the CO2 per capita graph, Japan is steadily leveling off their emissions, but it only have data from about 2008. After the earthquake in 2011 I wonder if Japan will continue to use Nuclear energy to continue to level off their emissions. I feel like in the far future Japan will be lower on the list since they  are one the leaders in technology advancement.

3) a. Based on the “Total Fossil Fuel Emissions by Country” graph, we have China at number 1, then the U.S., then Japan, India, Italy, and Kenya. China and India in booming economically, so they have a huge rise in fossil fuel emissions currently.

b. Qatar is currently number 1 for emitting CO2 with a capita of 14.58.

c. China has the most CO2 emissions on the graph, followed by the U.S. But based on capita the U.S. is more at fault then China is. The U.S. has an approximate population of 312,000,000 and China has an approximate population of 1,338,000,000. The U.S.’s capita is at 4.9 and China is at 1.43.  China out numbers the United States a million to one and yet the U.S. is almost polluting as much as China.

d. U.S. Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change: 91,229,888 (thousand metric tons)

China Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change: 31,793,558 (thousand metric tons)

Japan Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change: 13,968,546 (thousand metric tons)

India Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change: 9,182,205 (thousand metric tons)

Italy Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change: 5,364,817 (thousand metric tons)

Kenya Cumulative Contribution to Climate Change:80,124 (thousand metric tons)

e. China’s overall CO2 emissions are only about 34.8% to that of the United States and India is 10% to that of the U.S. Since 1999 the U.S. has kept their CO2 emissions at around 1,500,000. China and India has kept a pattern of increasing and no signs of stopping. China surpassed the U.S. in CO2 emissions in 2006 and has greatly increased their pollution since. It won’t take long for China to catch up to the United States in CO2 pollution.

4) The Keeling Curve graphs lets us know that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing. The Japan’s Emission of CO2 graph tells us about the release of CO2 of Japan over the years. Both graph’s have a similar rise shape because of the increase of carbon. Carbon has quite a long life span lasting between 50-200 years. Due to the way we are creating energy currently both emissions and concentration of CO2 will only continue to increase.

Greetings Earthlings!