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Japan’s Finance Ministry Ignores Climate Risk, Ex-Official Says

  • Former vice minister says gas tax, import tarrifs must rise
  • Says climate, debt are both like taxes on future generations
Climate Activists Denounce Mizuho Bank's Role In Financing Coal Power Projects Globally
Photographer: Kentaro Takahashi/Bloomberg

Japan’s most powerful government ministry doesn’t have one of the world’s biggest problems on its radar screen, according to a former top official at the ministry.

“Climate change is a problem that will change the economic system itself,” said Rintaro Tamaki, a former top bureaucrat at Japan’s finance ministry, which is in charge of the country’s budget and its tax rules. “But no one at the Finance Ministry is really paying attention to it.”