‘Act before it’s too late’: Tokyo residents fight for more trees — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Kaoru Morimoto and Susumu Nirasawa launched a 2025 grassroots campaign in Tokyo's Nakano ward urging officials to set a canopy cover target, with about 30 neighbors joining their expert talks, social media data-sharing, and local council petitions.
- A University of Tokyo study found central Tokyo's canopy cover fell from 9.2% in 2013 to 7.3% in 2022 — a 12 sq km loss equivalent to 3.5 times the size of New York's Central Park.
- Japan recorded its hottest summer on record in 2025, and in 2026 logged almost 120 heat-related deaths and more than 73,000 emergency care cases between May and August.
- Morimoto's own thermometer readings in Nakano showed roughly a 3-degree difference in shade between heavily pruned trees and those with large canopies.
- Global comparison: New York sits at about 23% canopy cover and aims for 30% by 2040, London targets a 10% increase from its current 20% by 2050, and Paris plans to boost coverage from about 18%.
- Kinya Shiraishi of the University of Tokyo attributed the decline largely to the loss of private residential gardens, as aging landowners sell and mature trees are felled when large plots are subdivided for housing demand.
- Eijiro Fujii, a Chiba University professor emeritus of horticulture, blamed over-pruning developed to manage trees in limited spaces and the frequent rotation of public officials overseeing street greenery for the drop in canopy cover.
Why it matters: Tokyo's 12 sq km of lost canopy is concentrated in dense areas where heat deaths are rising fastest, while peer cities like New York and London are actively setting expansion targets. Without a comparable Tokyo target, residents face a widening gap between local tree cover and what comparable capitals are committing to deliver on cooling and flood mitigation.
Ask SkimNews
