Amidst growing environmental concerns worldwide, Japan is seen as particularly vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate. This book considers Japan's response to the climate change problem from the late 1980s up to the present day. As the 2015 international climate change conference projects beyond 2020, the book concludes by analyzing how Japan has placed itself in the global climate change debate and how the country might and should respond to the problem in the future. This is the first book to explore Japan's climate change policy over three decades and will interest students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Comparative Politics, and Climate Change Policy.