Preventing Climate Integrity or Integrating Just Transition?: Counter-Discourses to Tokyo's Mandatory Solar Power Installation Ordinance

This study explores counter-discourses surrounding the expansion of renewable energy, focusing on the mandatory solar power installation ordinance in Tokyo as a case study. Although numerous Japanese municipalities aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, renewable energy adoption, a key strategy to achieve this goal, has not garnered unanimous societal support. Various opposition voices have emerged, presenting challenges to its expansion. Tokyo declared a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 in May 2019 and launched its "Carbon Half" plan, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. As part of these initiatives, Tokyo introduced in 2022 a regulation mandating solar panel installations for newly constructed buildings under 2,000㎡, specifically targeting developers supplying a total annual floor area of over 20,000㎡. This research analyzes opposition to the ordinance using data from sources such as Twitter, Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly records, newspaper articles, public comments, and Tokyo Metropolitan Environmental Council meeting minutes. The main counter-discourses include: 1) concerns about China as the primary producer of solar panels, with criticism further linked to human rights issues in Xinjiang, 2) concerns over rising housing prices that may exclude all but the wealthy from living in Tokyo, 3) opposition based on the environmental impacts of solar panel disposal, and 4) resistance from a disaster-prevention perspective, such as fears of fire hazards. This study shows that while climate change becomes the dominant discourse, counter-discourses mobilize human rights, fairness and other environmental issues to challenge these policies, raising the question of whether they are obstacles to climate integrity or whether they integrate 'just transition' into policy.