【CIDEG Academic Seminar No.97】
Title: Urbanization and industrial environment--Japan's experience and lessons learned
Speaker: Meng Jianjun, Research Fellow at the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance, Adjunct Professor in Tokyo Institute of Technology
Moderator: Chen ling, Associate Professor of School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Time: 13:00-15:00, April 19th, 2013
Venue: Room 421,
School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Language: Chinese
Organizer: Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance,（CIDEG）, Tsinghua University
Bio of Speaker:
Meng Jianjun is a Research Fellow at the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance in the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). He also is an Adjunct Professor in Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo, Japan), and a Faculty Fellow, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (Tokyo, Japan) and a Visiting Fellow, CNRS-EHESS (Paris, France).
He is a specialist for Development Economics, Institute Economics, and Chinese Economy and East Asia Economy Research.
Recently, his research focuses on industrial and regional development in China and Japan, the China urbanization process, the Sino-Japan environmental network, and “A Comparative Study in European Union and East Asia”——Cultural Background and Economics Integration.
Brief Introduction：
The process of urbanization is also the process of industrialization. From the view of industry development and environmental governance, the important feature is that Japan's urbanization has gone through a painful process of taking remedies and measures after pollution.
Due to the rapid growth of the Japanese economy in the 1950s, a variety of industrial pollution seriously influenced the air, water, soil and so on. In 1963, Japanese government designated 13 new industrial cities and 6 special industry development regions. Thus, the environmental pollution brought by development of basic industries concentrated along the coastal industrial areas, where serious industrial pollution existed. With the further exacerbation of water and soil quality and the extension of air pollution (mainly sulfur oxides), the degree of pollution deteriorated increasingly. Japanese government had to convene the so-called “Nuisance Congress” in 1970 in order to comprehensively solve the severe environmental problems. This becomes a turning point for Japan to strengthen pollution regulation. From the mid-1970s, Japan finally began to shift attention to environment-friendly industry policy.
