Chart of the Week



Talking about the Environment?

6/15 2025

Author: Sachi Ninomiya-Lim


The Nippon Foundation's annual online survey on the attitudes of 18-year-olds this year focused on the "environment“ as its theme. It asked 1,000 people aged 17-19 in Japan about their perceptions of environmental problems and climate change, including their impacts, necessary measures and solutions.

Among the results, one of the most striking is the answer to the question, “How often do you usually talk about social issues such as environmental problems with your family and friends outside of class or work?” More than half of the respondents answered that they "rarely talk about environmental and other social issues”. (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Frequency of Talking about Environmental and Other Social Issues (Respondents aged 17-19)
Source: The Nippon Foundation (2025), English translation by the author
Prior to this, Dentsu Soken Inc. conducted a survey to young people (1,000 people aged 16-25) in Japan in October 2022, asking the same questions with the global survey titled “Climate Anxiety in Children and Young People and Their Beliefs about Government Responses to Climate Change,” conducted in May-June 2021 in 10 countries (Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the UK, and the USA, 1,000 participants per country) (Hickman et al. 2021).

One of the questions in these surveys asked the respondents to choose “yes”, “no”, or “I don't talk to other people about climate change” to the statement “When I try to talk about climate change other people have ignored or dismissed me”. A surprising 41.6% of Japanese youth chose the third option, which was significantly higher than in other countries. (Figure 2)

Figure 2: Responses to “When I try to talk about climate change other people have ignored or dismissed me” (Respondents aged 16-25)
Source: Dentsu Soken Inc. (2023), English translation by the author.

In the current global society, environmentalists face a challenging task in overcoming conflicts of differing ideas and values, which sometimes involve skepticism and denial towards environmental issues, such as climate change. However, in Japan, it appears that we need to overcome the situation where people are not “talking about it” in the first place. Education and learning need to be developed and facilitated further for encouraging and supporting people to gain interest in the issues and to openly exchange their ideas and thoughts with others.


References

Dentsu Soken Inc. (2023) Survey on Attitudes toward Climate Insecurity (International Comparison Version) (original in Japanese: 電通総研（2023）『電通総研コンパスvol.9気候不安に関する意識調査（国際比較版）』
https://qos.dentsusoken.com/articles/2823/ (Accessed on June 11, 2025))

Caroline Hickman, Elizabeth Marks, Panu Pihkala, Susan Clayton, Eric Lewandowski, Elouise E Mayall, Britt Wray, Catriona Mellor, Lise van Susteren (2021) “Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey”, The Lancet Planetary Health, vol. 5, Issue 12, e863-873.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext (Accessed on June 11, 2025)

The Nippon Foundation (2025) Awareness Survey of 18-Year-Olds: The Environment (original in Japanese: 日本財団（2025）『18歳意識調査「第69回―環境―」』
https://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/new_pr_20250606_04.pdf (Accessed on June 11, 2025)）