Amount of Greenhouse Gas Emission

The volume of greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, discharged by each prefecture. There was no accurate data on the volume of greenhouse gas emission by prefecture. It may be due to the difficulty of measurement, but most data on the volume of emission according to prefecture found on the internet were volumes estimated from each prefecture's volume of energy consumption, automobiles owned, number of households and number of business offices, etc.

It is not appropriate to estimate prefectural characteristics based on estimated values on this website which is based on actual data. After searching for more specific data, data released by the Ministry of the Environment was found. This data is a summary of data submitted by business companies based on the Law Concerning the Promotion of Measures to Cope with Global Warming.

According to the above law revised in 2005, those discharging large volume of greenhouse gas must report on the volume of emission, and a summary of such reported data is released by the Ministry of the Environment. From the official release:

"Results of 2006 Greenhouse Gas Emission Volume based on Greenhouse Gas System
The Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry calculated the colume of greenhouse gas discharged in 2006 reported by business companies according to the Greenhouse Gas System based on the Law Concerning the Promotion of Measures to Cope with Global Warming, which has been summarized as follows.

14,225 specified business emitters (7,505 businesses) and 1,439 specified export emitters reported on the volume of greenhouse gas emission. The total amount of greenhouse gas emission reported by specified emitters was 652,860,000t CO2 which is equivalent to approximately one-half of the approximately 1,341,000,000t CO2 discharged in 2006 in our country (quick estimation)."

The above volume of greenhouse gas emission was divided by the population of each prefecture, and the volume of greenhouse gas emission per capita was calculated by prefecture. The unit is in tons.

The volume of emission per capita is greatest in Yamaguchi, followed by Oita and Okayama. The population in these areas is smaller compared to large cities but there are many large-sized industrial complexes discharging great amounts of greenhouse gas along the coast, resulting in the large volume of emission per capita. This can be seen from the point that inland prefectures such as Nara, Yamanashi and Nagano are ranked low.

Because the survey was conducted on business companies, prefectures with many large oceanfront business companies are ranked high and the results are not that strongly associated with prefectural characteristics. However, it may serve as one material for learning about the features of a prefecture.