''Our fight is more visible’: Goldman environment prize winners see shift in political winds', 15 June 2021

For more than 20 years, Kimiko Hirata has fought a long and often lonely battle against coal in Japan, but for the first time the climate activist believes the dirtiest fossil fuel is on the run, not just in her country but across the world. Like several other winners of this year’s Goldman environmental prize, the frontline campaigner sees a shift in the political winds that has created a rare – and perhaps final – opportunity to reduce emissions and rebuild the planet’s natural life support systems. This optimism is based on local victories that prove positive change is possible, along with global shifts driven by activists such as Greta Thunberg, Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election and a flurry of major UN environmental conferences... As founder of the Kiko Network, which has been campaigning for emissions reductions since before the Kyoto climate conference of 1997, she sees strong evidence that Japan is at a turning point. One third of planned coal plants have been cancelled. Several major institutions has stopped financing overseas coal projects. The government has also set a net zero target for 2050 and put in place a 2030 reduction target... In Japan, power companies continue to drag their feet and extend the lifespan of existing or under-construction coal plants with dubious promises to upgrade technology. Hirata said the government needed to be firmer in standing up to vested interests to ensure the phase-out was not knocked off track... Utilities such as Tepco, J Power and Chubu Electric are politically influential...