At a time when some US news outlets have retreated from the climate story, hundreds of news organizations in Japan are headed in the opposite direction.
Inspired by Covering Climate Now’s 89 Percent Project, every television network and station in Japan this spring began a two-year program of airing public service commercials pointing out that 89% of people in Japan support climate action, “so people shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it.” And talking about climate change, the noted climate science communicator Katharine Hayhoe often says, is an essential first step towards doing something about it.
Now, 136 of Japan’s media outlets have gone further, joining a public awareness project called “I am one of the 89% who want to stop global warming.” Organized by the UN Information Center in Japan, the project aims “to make visible the voices of prominent figures and people from all walks of life who want to stop global warming, and to amplify them into a collective voice of society.”
Many of the biggest names in Japan’s news media are taking part, including CCNow partners The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the NHK public broadcasting service, and The Hokkaido Shimbun. Other participants include The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nikkei, and Hokkaido Shimbun newspapers, and commercial broadcasters Nippon TV and Fuji Television. Beginning on June 25, the outlets posted an 89%-themed message every day on their social media accounts, websites, and other platforms. (The messaging, which includes original content creations like this post featuring an animated pink and white bear, will continue through the end of the year and be compiled here.)
The project is unfolding in a country that is a prominent, though often overlooked, part of the global climate challenge. Japan has long been one of the world’s biggest economies; it’s currently the fourth biggest, according to the International Monetary Fund, trailing only the US, China, and Germany. It has also long been one of the biggest annual emitters of planet-warming gases; its 972 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2024 placed it fifth in the world. At the same time, Japan is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, notably extreme heat and intensified typhoons. The summer of 2025 was the hottest in Japan’s recorded history.
Yet the country’s conservative prime minister Sanae Takaichi has shown little interest in defusing the climate emergency, much like her counterparts in the US and elsewhere. As Bloomberg Green revealed several months ago, the trade deal Takaichi signed with Donald Trump in October committed Japan to investing $33 billion in a gas-fired power plant in Ohio that, if completed, would rank as “one of the [US]’s largest sources of CO2 emissions from electricity generation,” Bloomberg Green reported, roughly equivalent to “3.8 million gas cars over a year of driving.”
Would Takaichi have signed such an agreement if she knew that 89% of Japan’s people want their government to take stronger climate action? It’s impossible to know. What is known is that politicians in numerous countries mistakenly assume that their constituents don’t care very much about fighting climate change. In Germany, for example, a new study in Nature concluded from interviews with hundreds of elected officials across the partisan spectrum that they “vastly underestimated” the public’s support for climate action, especially the actions that can be most impactful, such as higher taxes and stricter laws.
This disconnect between what most of the public wants and what politicians think they want exists at a time when rapid, effective climate action is more urgently needed than ever. Not only is the planet getting hotter than it has been since civilization arose 10,000 years ago, it’s getting hotter faster than even scientists had anticipated. Global temperatures will keep rising until the burning of fossil fuels is phased out, which scientists say can be achieved with existing technologies. Journalists should be connecting all these dots. Bravo to our colleagues in Japan for advancing a model the rest of us can emulate.
From Us
Radar Clima: Cómo cubrir la intersección entre cambio climático y religión, desde el Vaticano hasta La Meca. En la última edición de Radar Clima, nuestro boletín en español para periodistas de todas las áreas, nos preguntamos si los creyentes y los líderes religiosos pueden hacer que avance la acción climática. Muchos ya lo están haciendo, pero es un ángulo muy poco cubierto en medios de comunicación en español. Te damos datos clave, recursos y contactos para ayudarte a cubrirlo en América Latina, Estados Unidos y España. Échale un vistazo a las ediciones anteriores y suscríbete para recibir el boletín los miércoles.
RSVP: CCNow Basics: Three Pillars. Join us on Wednesday, August 12, at 10am US Eastern Time (2pm UTC), for a training session on the Three Pillars approach to climate change journalism: humanize, localize, solutionize. All journalists, especially early-career reporters, are invited!
Noteworthy Stories
Not just heat. Scientists are shocked by “super-extremes” in heatwaves, ocean temperature, and ice melt as climate change accelerates. “We’re starting to see extremes on a spatial scale and a magnitude that’s really surprising,” said Tim Lenton, Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. By Eric Roston and Hayley Warren for Bloomberg Green…
Sweltering at work. Workers in and around New Delhi — where the peak temperature this summer hit 115.7 degrees Fahrenheit — talk about what it’s like to labor in extreme heat and how they’re trying to cope. By Krishna Pokharel for the Wall Street Journal…
Complex risks. El Niño could bring drought, floods, and displacement to parts of Africa in coming months, warns the World Meteorological Association. Are governments prepared? By Mimi Mefo Newuh for Deutsche Welle…
Climate.us. After the Trump administration deleted government websites that helped visitors understand global heating, scientists, nonprofits, academic institutions, and former federal workers joined forces to re-publish the information and protect it from future political attacks. By Kate Yoder for Grist…
Follow the money. Taxpayers in the US, the EU, and the UK are propping up oil, gas, and coal industries with government investments and subsidies, while private energy investment in fossil fuels has fallen from 50% to 28% since 2015, according to the International Energy Agency. By David Fickling for Business Times…
Fighting on. Climate activists in Colombia react to the election of far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who has pledged to upend the previous administration’s green push and prioritize fossil fuel extraction and fracking. By Sinar Alvarado for The Guardian…
- Political winds are shifting right throughout Latin America, with the election of Keiko Fujimori last month in Peru and the candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for president in Brazil’s October election.
Quote of the Week
“In both of these cases we can see the fingerprint of climate change on the storms and that has really devastating consequences for the people who are repeatedly in their paths.”
– Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist at Climate Central, said after a second super typhoon slammed into the Northern Mariana Islands this week
Resources & Events
- “Fixing Climate Communications: Moving beyond narrow narratives to power durable progress” (Potential Energy and The Rockefeller Foundation)
- “Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world” (Nature Climate Change)
- “Rethinking urban forests as essential infrastructure for resilience, equity, and biodiversity in the current climate emergency” (PLOS Climate)
- RSVP: “Football for the People, Not for the Rich: Exposing the FIFA World Cup’s Climate and Social Injustice,” hosted by Stay Grounded, on Thursday, July 9, at 3pm US Eastern Time (7pm UTC)
- RSVP: “Climate Communications Series: Everything Is an Energy Story,” hosted by Heatmap Labs and FischTank PR, on Wednesday, July 15, at 1pm US Eastern Time (5pm UTC).
- RSVP: “Can This Climate Policy Actually Work? Learn How to Test It with En-ROADS,” hosted by Climate Tracker Asia and Climate Interactive, on Tuesday, July 28, at 9am Jakarta time, and Thursday, July 30, at 5pm IST.
On the Beat
- Climate Media Lab at the University of Amsterdam uses quantitative methods to study how the media covers climate change. Check out their recent studies, including an assessment of The Guardian’s climate coverage from 2010–2025.
- “Analysis: UK newspapers have already printed 63 editorials in 2026 backing North Sea drilling” (Carbon Brief)
- “Turning the Threat to a Distant Glacier into a Local Story Through Data Visualization” (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
Jobs, Etc.
Jobs. CalMatters and Grist are hiring a Climate Reporter (remote, Central Valley, Calif.). Mongabay is hiring a Managing Editor – Africa (English), an Associate Editor – Story Transformer, and a Senior Video Story Editor (remote). The University of Chicago Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth is hiring a Communications Specialist, Science and Technology (Chicago, Ill.). The Santa Fe New Mexican is hiring a State Environment Reporter (Santa Fe, N.M.). NPR’s Science Friday is hiring an Associate Producer, Audio (remote or NYC). ProPublica is hiring a California Reporter (remote, California). Boston 25 News (WFXT) is hiring a Broadcast Meteorologist (Boston, Mass.). ABC affiliate 16WAPT is hiring a Chief Meteorologist (Jackson, Miss.). CTV Your Morning Winnipeg is hiring a Weather Anchor (Winnipeg, Canada). The Times-Picayune/The Advocate is hiring an Environmental Reporter (New Orleans, La.).
Fellowships. Trusting News is accepting applications for a program aimed at helping creator journalists test how to demonstrate credibility to their audience; apply by July 10. Inside Climate News is accepting applications for its fall 2026 fellowship; apply by August 15.
Workshop. Internews’s Earth Journalism Network is accepting applications for a media workshop on biodiversity reporting in Kenya; apply by July 11.