Agenda

Sophia University Climate Survey 2025: Feeling the Climate Crisis in Japan

Prof. Dr. Carola Hommerich (Sophia University)
Dr. Joanna Kitsnik (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei)

Japan presents a striking paradox: public concern about climate change is high and rising, yet the country consistently underperforms on international climate policy indices, and the sense of urgency to act remains comparatively low. This gap between concern and mobilisation raises a fundamental question — not just about policy, but about society: how do different groups in Japan actually understand, evaluate, and relate to climate change, and what does this mean for the prospects of a just and cohesive transition to a carbon-neutral society?

This talk presents findings from the Sophia University Climate Survey, a large-scale representative online survey of 5,000 respondents conducted in Japan in autumn 2025. Drawing on latent class analysis across multiple dimensions of climate orientations — concern, beliefs and attribution, affective and moral response, efficacy beliefs, and techno optimism — we identify five distinct climate orientation types within the Japanese population, ranging from the deeply engaged and empowered to the sceptical and the indifferent. We then further examine how these types differ in their sociodemographic and socioeconomic composition, their political orientations, and their patterns of information consumption and trust.

Rather than treating the gap between climate concern and action simply as a problem of insufficient information or awareness, the findings point to different combinations of emotions, perceived agency, trust, and social position that shape how people respond to the climate crisis. We hope to use the Japanese case as a starting point for discussion with the audience: Why does concern translate into mobilisation for some groups but not for others? How can climate policies address heterogeneous publics without reinforcing existing social divisions? And to what extent might similar patterns of concern, efficacy, trust, and disengagement be found in Italy and elsewhere in Europe?

Carola Hommerich is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sophia University, Tokyo. In the past, she has served as Associate Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Letters of Hokkaido University, and as Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo. Her research focuses on the interrelation of subjective well-being and social status, as well as on the interlinkage of environmental attitudes and behaviour. Her research has appeared in Social Indicators Research, Applied Research in Quality of Life, Journal of Happiness Studies, Social Sciences Japan Journal, among others.

Joanna Kitsnik is a comparative quantitative sociologist with extensive international experience. Her research focuses on the comparative dimensions of inequality, environmental attitudes, and the equitable aspects of sustainability. She earned her MA in Sociology from Tallinn University, and a PhD in Sociology (2022) from the Graduate School of Letters at Kyoto University. Her postdoctoral research at Sophia University in Tokyo was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Currently, she is a Researcher at FEEM, contributing to the ADAPT@VE program and the EUROlakes project under the Horizon Europe framework.