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This chapter provides a systematic analysis of Japan’s carbon market and climate policy architecture, aiming to explain how the country has built a scalable carbon pricing framework in the absence of a unified national mandatory ETS. Japan adopts a multi-layered policy structure that operates across the national, subnational, and corporate levels. At the national level, the gradual rollout of the GX-ETS follows a phased approach—from the voluntary transition period to the formal compliance phase—allowing for policy experimentation, capacity building, and the stabilization of market institutions. Meanwhile, the long-standing emissions trading schemes in Tokyo and Saitama have supplied essential MRV infrastructure, corporate carbon management practices, and empirical cost data, serving as important foundations for the design of the national system. In terms of policy instruments, Japan has developed a “price–market–fiscal” three-pillar system composed of the carbon tax, the J-Credit program, and the GX-Surcharge. The carbon tax provides a broad yet moderate long-term price signal; the J-Credit scheme offers a flexible mechanism for corporate mitigation and low-carbon investment; and the GX-Surcharge creates a stable revenue source to support energy transition and industrial decarbonization projects. Together, these instruments form an institutional ecosystem that reinforces the operation of the GX-ETS by enhancing policy stability, ensuring financial support, enabling diverse stakeholder participation, and expanding the supply of mitigation projects. Overall, Japan’s carbon pricing and climate governance pathway is characterized by gradual institutional construction, the integration of subnational experience, and the coordinated deployment of multiple policy tools. By examining the evolution of the GX-ETS, the lessons from Tokyo and Saitama, and the operation of key national policy instruments, this chapter sheds light on how Japan is navigating its energy and industrial constraints to advance a credible and adaptive low-carbon transition.

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Japan’s Carbon Market and Climate Policies

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Ning Zhang

摘要

This chapter provides a systematic analysis of Japan’s carbon market and climate policy architecture, aiming to explain how the country has built a scalable carbon pricing framework in the absence of a unified national mandatory ETS. Japan adopts a multi-layered policy structure that operates across the national, subnational, and corporate levels. At the national level, the gradual rollout of the GX-ETS follows a phased approach—from the voluntary transition period to the formal compliance phase—allowing for policy experimentation, capacity building, and the stabilization of market institutions. Meanwhile, the long-standing emissions trading schemes in Tokyo and Saitama have supplied essential MRV infrastructure, corporate carbon management practices, and empirical cost data, serving as important foundations for the design of the national system. In terms of policy instruments, Japan has developed a “price–market–fiscal” three-pillar system composed of the carbon tax, the J-Credit program, and the GX-Surcharge. The carbon tax provides a broad yet moderate long-term price signal; the J-Credit scheme offers a flexible mechanism for corporate mitigation and low-carbon investment; and the GX-Surcharge creates a stable revenue source to support energy transition and industrial decarbonization projects. Together, these instruments form an institutional ecosystem that reinforces the operation of the GX-ETS by enhancing policy stability, ensuring financial support, enabling diverse stakeholder participation, and expanding the supply of mitigation projects. Overall, Japan’s carbon pricing and climate governance pathway is characterized by gradual institutional construction, the integration of subnational experience, and the coordinated deployment of multiple policy tools. By examining the evolution of the GX-ETS, the lessons from Tokyo and Saitama, and the operation of key national policy instruments, this chapter sheds light on how Japan is navigating its energy and industrial constraints to advance a credible and adaptive low-carbon transition.