One of the main climate change concerns for Japan and other Asian countries with valuable and densely-populated low-lying coastal land is how much of their land may be threatened by rising sea levels and storm surges as the century advances.
Humans burning fossil fuels and clearing forests are pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases into the atmosphere. The vast majority of climate scientists say this is warming the planet, an effect that is most pronounced in the polar regions where the bulk of the world's ice is located.
A warmer Earth leads to warmer oceans which expand. Melting land-ice that flows into the sea adds to the rise, potentially causing huge property and food production losses as well as forcing millions of coastal residents to move inland.