Between Alarm and Apathy: Mapping Environmental Orientations in the Japanese Public | Mon, November 16, 2026, 14–16 h | Room LB …
Between Alarm and Apathy: Mapping Environmental Orientations in the Japanese Public | Mon, November 16, 2026, 14–16 h | Room LB 121
Co-Author: Joanna Kitsnik
Japan presents a striking paradox: public concern about climate change is high and rising, yet the country consistently underperforms on international climate policy indices, and the sense of urgency to act remains comparatively low. This gap between concern and mobilisation raises a fundamental question — not just about policy, but about society: how do different groups in Japan actually understand, evaluate, and relate to climate change, and what does this mean for the prospects of a just and cohesive transition to a carbon-neutral society?
This talk presents findings from the Sophia University Climate Survey, a nationwide online survey of 5,000 respondents conducted in Japan in autumn 2025. Drawing on latent class analysis across multiple dimensions of climate orientations — concern, beliefs and attribution, affective and moral response, efficacy beliefs, and techno optimism — we identify five distinct climate orientation types within the Japanese population, ranging from the deeply engaged and empowered to the sceptical and the indifferent. We then further examine how these types differ in their sociodemographic and socioeconomic composition, their political orientations, and their patterns of information consumption and trust.
Understanding what defines these different orientation types — and what divides them — has implications not only for climate communication and policy, but for social cohesion more broadly.
Carola Hommerich is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sophia University, Tokyo. In the past, she has served as Associate Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Letters of Hokkaido University, and as Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo. Her research focuses on the interrelation of subjective well-being and social status, as well as on the interlinkage of environmental attitudes and behaviour. Her research has appeared in Social Indicators Research, Applied Research in Quality of Life, Journal of Happiness Studies, Social Sciences Japan Journal, among others.
Joanna Kitsnik is a comparative quantitative sociologist with extensive international experience. Her research focuses on the comparative dimensions of inequality, environmental attitudes, and the equitable aspects of sustainability. She earned her MA in Sociology from Tallinn University, and a PhD in Sociology (2022) from the Graduate School of Letters at Kyoto University. Her postdoctoral research at Sophia University in Tokyo was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Currently, she is a Researcher at FEEM, contributing to the
ADAPT@VE program and the EUROlakes project under the Horizon Europe framework.
