New Challenges and Solutions for Renewable Energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe
The 92nd Stockholm Seminar on Japan
In this Stockholm Seminar on Japan, the editors, Paul Midford and Espen Moe, presented and discussed their new book: New Challenges and Solutions for Renewable Energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe. This is a timely topic in relation to the goal of the new Suga government of Japan to increase the share of renewable energy resources.
The book identifies second stage challenges and opportunities for expanding renewable energy into a mainstay of electricity generation that can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power, comparing Japan with several countries in East Asia and Northern Europe. Environmentally sustainable renewable energy technologies have now overtaken fossil fuel and nuclear technologies in terms of total global investment, and the costs of these technologies and related ones (e.g. storage batteries) are rapidly falling. Yet renewable energy use varies greatly from country to country.
Dr. Paul Midford is Professor of international relations at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama Japan. He specializes in Japanese foreign and security policies, and East Asian regional politics and security.
Dr. Espen Moe is Professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His specialization is in political economy and energy policy, with a particular focus on major processes of structural economic change, such as the current renewable energy transition.
Moderator: Professor Marie Söderberg, European Institute of Japanese Studies, Stockholm School of Economics
Discussant: Dr. Patrik Ström, Director, European Institute of Japanese Studies, Stockholm School of Economics
The Japan seminar series is jointly organized by the European Institute of Japanese Studies at Stockholm School of Economics, the Asia Programme at The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence University. It features monthly seminars on Japanese economy, politics and society.