Highlighting JAPAN

With its rooftop greenery and broad planted areas, not to mention a circulation system that utilizes urban gas as an energy source, Mori Building's "vertical garden city" Roppongi Hills in Tokyo is a fine example of a model urban development. COURTESY OF MORI BUILDING GO.

To transform Japan into a low-carbon society, our lifestyles, urban and traffic situations, and other social systems need to undergo fundamental change. Pioneering such transformation are Japan's Eco-Model Cities.

Shuzo Murakami, a research expert in architectural and urban environmental engineering and geoenvironmental engineering, comments on the significance and likely effect of Japan's Eco-Model Cities program.

Masahiro Nakajima, a member of the government panel which selected the first Eco-Model Cities, comments on the selection procedure.

Selection of the first Eco-Model Cities called on the use of a "low-carbon city simulator." Tsuyoshi Fujita explains how it works.

Teruaki Masumoto, executive advisor for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, appraises the environmental movement afoot which sees private enterprises working closely with regional communities.

What can ordinary citizens do to expedite the achievement of a low-carbon society? Junko Edahiro, a leading environmental journalist and activist, comments.