Confusing Japanese response to the Earth4All survey
Crowds at the Shibuya Scramble in central Tokyo. Photo by B Lucava.
I must confess to being rather perplexed by the results from the 2024 Earth for All survey. Organized by the Global Commons Alliance, the survey covered 22,000 people across the world’s largest economies. The main conclusion based on the survey results was that there is “overwhelming support for progressive tax reforms and broader political and economic changes to reduce inequality and increase well-being.”
Japan, however, is revealed to be something of an outlier and tended to rank at the bottom of the 21 countries surveyed in terms of the level of support for transformative political and economic change.
For example, when asked how quickly the world needs to take major action to address climate change, only 53 percent of Japanese respondents strongly supported the need to act immediately (within the next decade) to reduce carbon emissions. This contrasts with a 71 percent average across the G20 countries.
Only Saudi Arabia was ranked below Japan at 52 percent. While it is easy to explain Saudi Arabia’s reticence with regards to rapid climate action due to economic dependence on oil revenues, the Japanese position is harder to reconcile.
Even more curious is the fact that Japanese women, low income households and young people (18-24) appeared less likely to support immediate climate action.
What is going on? Why was the Japanese response comparatively so low?
Is it some combination of limited media reporting on climate change concerns and a failure to address this crisis within the educational system?
Perhaps it simply reflects the possibility that many people in wealthy countries (and especially in Japan) don’t believe they will be affected by climate change until far into the future?
When it comes to addressing climate change how soon should we take action? A total of 22,000 individuals responded to the 2024 Earth for All survey,
Even stranger results
There are some other results from the survey that I found equally surprising.
A selection responses to key statements from the survey is presented in the table below. As previously mentioned, Japan ranked at the bottom in terms of its support for most of these statements.
For instance, only 50 percent and 61 percent of Japanese respondents strongly supported higher taxes for business and higher income tax for the wealthy respectively, whereas the corresponding figures for the G20 were 69 and 70 percent.
Interestingly, there was little support for a universal basic income (UBI) at 34 percent (compared to 52 percent for the G20). This is perhaps not surprising and the challenges of introducing UBI were addressed in a 2014 book by Vanderborght and Yamamori on Basic Income in Japan. One big issue here is the fact that UBI implementation requires a major rethink of the entire Japanese welfare state.
Curiously, there was a lack of strong support for citizen assemblies (only 40 percent) suggesting that there is limited scope or demand for experimentation with new forms of public engagement.
It also appears that people in Japan are not overly concerned about the political influence of large corporations (only 38 percent strongly supported regulation of businesses in this context). Or maybe the respondents are just pragmatic and feel that not much can be done about the existing cosy relationship between politicians and business.
In view of the poor performance that Japan demonstrates in the gender gap rankings (118th place in 2025), you might have expected that Japanese people would like to see more equal gender leadership in government and business. However, support in Japan at 39 percent was the lowest for all G20 countries (average of 61%).
It may well be that on average the Japanese consider that their diet is very healthy compared to that of other nations and this could explain the very low response to the statement on healthy diets in the table below (only 34 percent support policies to promote healthy eating). However, the point that may be missed here by the survey respondents is the very important relationship between diet and greenhouse gas emissions.
The response to the last statement in the table is somewhat concerning in that it appears that Japanese support from renewables, energy efficiency and clean transport was significantly lower than in the rest of the G20. Again, does this come down to a problem of limited media coverage on the topic or is it a reflection of government policy?
A selection of responses for various statements for Japan compared to the rest of the G20, including Japan’s ranking out of 21 countries.
Other Observations
One real eye-opener response from the survey revealed the very clear lack of trust that Japanese respondents have for their government.
Only 14 percent strongly/tend to agree with the statement that the “Government can be trusted to make decisions for the benefit of the majority of people.” This compares with an average of 39 percent for G20 countries.
Some 29 percent of Japanese respondents agreed that the economic system was bad for the environment, compared with a G20 average of 44 percent.
Moreover, only 47 percent agreed that Japan’s economy should prioritize health and well-being of people and nature rather than focus on profit and wealth. This compares to the G20 average of 68 percent.
When asked about their views on the future, 23 percent of Japanese respondents indicated that they were optimistic about their individual future, while a mere 11 percent were optimistic about the future of Japan and the world.
To some extent this may reflect the fact that the survey took place in a particularly difficult year when conflicts are widespread. In addition, Japan has been struggling with a number of major challenges such as an aging, declining population and falling birth rates. These factors are bound to influence how people feel about the future.
The full survey results are accessible online and I would encourage you to check them out and form your own opinions on the response from Japan and the other G20 countries.