A summer of typhoons and flooding has put the issues of severe weather, global warming and climate change mitigation domestically and internationally back on top of Japan's political agenda.

But with the country's current and long-term energy strategy still dependent on fossil fuels, especially coal-fired plants, its hesitation to wean itself off of nuclear power and embrace renewable energy, a wait-and-see attitude about future technical innovations, and a reliance on voluntary industrial measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions, questions remain as to whether Japan will be a climate leader or a climate laggard.

In a Sept. 23 op-ed for the Financial Times, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for more international cooperation to tackle climate change, saying that "all countries must engage with the same level of urgency."