Overview of the 2026 White Paper on Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism | Chapter 9MLIT White Paper 2026: Decarbonization and Environmental Protection

Climate change is intensifying and increasing the frequency of natural disasters, making global warming countermeasures an urgent worldwide issue. The white paper organizes mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and improved well-being as interrelated policy challenges.

Japan has declared net zero by 2050 and aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 46% from fiscal 2013 levels by fiscal 2030, while pursuing the higher challenge of 50%, with targets of 60% reduction in fiscal 2035 and 73% reduction in fiscal 2040.

According to a report by the World Meteorological Organization, the global annual average temperature in 2025 was 1.43°C (±0.13°C) above the preindustrial 1850–1900 average, making 2023–2025 the warmest three-year period on record.

The policy scope extends from cities and buildings to roads, transport and logistics, maritime shipping, aviation and ports, water and sewerage, and rivers and coasts, addressing not only emission reductions but also resource circulation, ecosystems, the water environment, and improvements to the living environment.

In June 2025, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism revised its Environmental Action Plan and is promoting renewable energy using housing and buildings, public transport and logistics, and infrastructure, as well as the conversion of transport and infrastructure to non-fossil energy.

For people and local communities, the policies aim to create safe and comfortable living environments, promote health, and provide favorable child-rearing environments through compliance with energy-saving standards, improved public transport convenience, preservation of urban green space and open space, heat mitigation, and water-quality improvement.

For companies, relevant measures include emissions trading, subsidies for environmentally high-performance vehicles, support for technology development such as SAF, zero-emission ships, and hydrogen vehicles, green procurement, and responses to life-cycle carbon assessment. In logistics, cooperation and behavioral change among shippers, operators, consumers, and workers are also policy targets.

For local governments, frameworks are provided for planning and planning support based on relevant systems, including road, port, and airport decarbonization promotion plans. Under basin water-cycle plans, technical advice and proposals are provided for planning and implementation suited to local conditions, expanding the role of promoting broad-area and public-private cooperation.

A central policy challenge is to connect responses to international targets with local implementation systems and continuously combine infrastructure renewal and resilience, reductions in environmental impacts, restoration of the natural environment, and forecasting based on observation data.

Urban GX promotes compact-plus-network development, comfortable and walkable spaces, area-wide energy use, environmentally considerate private urban development, and green infrastructure. For automobiles, it provides eco-car tax reductions and subsidies for fuel-cell vehicles, electric vehicles, and other vehicles, while roads receive charging and hydrogen-fueling facilities, pedestrian and bicycle spaces, LED lighting, and low-carbon materials.

In public transport and logistics, policies promote MaaS, public transport network restructuring, barrier-free access, modal shift, joint transport and delivery, EV and FCV trucks, and port decarbonization. Trucks account for more than half of domestic freight transport on a ton-kilometer basis, making greater use of railways and coastal shipping an issue.

Railways are introducing energy-saving rolling stock, hydrogen fuel-cell rolling stock, and renewable energy, while ships are adopting hydrogen, ammonia, LNG, methanol, batteries, and other technologies. The domestic vessel energy-efficiency rating system had certified 268 vessels as of the end of March 2026. In aviation, SAF and other measures are being promoted toward carbon neutrality by 2050, and 51 airports had formulated decarbonization promotion plans as of the end of March 2026.

For housing and buildings, compliance with energy-saving standards has been made mandatory in principle for all new residential and nonresidential buildings from April 2025, with a target of raising the standards to ZEH and ZEB levels by 2030 at the latest. Energy-efficient housing and renovations, ZEB, taxation, financing, and a life-cycle carbon assessment system are also under consideration.

In water and sewerage and construction, policies promote energy-saving equipment, biogas production and fertilizer use from sewage sludge, renewable power generation, GX construction machinery, low-carbon concrete, and green steel. With fiscal 2030 as the target, the use of certified models is to become the general rule in directly managed works for widely used hydraulic excavators.

Renewable energy initiatives use offshore wind in port areas and general waters, hybrid dams, small hydropower, sewage biomass, and solar power in infrastructure spaces. Offshore wind projects have selected operators at six ports nationwide, seven ports have been designated as base ports, and public calls for new or expanded power-generation facilities at existing dams have been conducted at three dams. Demonstration operations of hydrogen-fueled ships are targeted to begin by 2028.

In the circular economy, policies promote horizontal recycling of construction waste, effective use of excavated construction soil, fertilizer use of sewage sludge, and circular-resource logistics centered on 22 recycling ports. In fiscal 2024, 999,076 vehicles underwent dismantling confirmation, permanent deregistration, or other procedures under the Automobile Recycling Law, and the Ship Recycling Convention entered into force in June 2025.

For biodiversity and the natural environment, habitats and growing environments in rivers, urban green spaces, coasts, and ports are conserved, restored, and created. The approach combines nature-oriented river development, invasive-species measures, integrated sediment management, tidal-flat and seaweed-bed restoration, blue carbon, coastal nature schools, and roadside greening.

In the water cycle, a total of 85 basin water-cycle plans had been published as of March 2026, and support had been provided to 7 local governments through the Water Cycle Advisor program. Water-quality surveys were conducted in 2024 at 1,086 sites across 109 Class A river systems, and 592 water-quality accidents occurred in Class A river systems.

For a stable water supply, rainwater utilization facilities totaled 4,563 at the end of fiscal 2024, with annual use of approximately 12.78 million m3, and drought-response timelines began operating at the end of fiscal 2025 in 42 river systems managed by the national government. The water-supply coverage rate was 98.3% at the end of fiscal 2024, the wastewater-treatment coverage rate was 93.7%, and the sewerage coverage rate was 81.8%.