Rooftop garden in Tokyo

On top of the world: The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has added a rooftop garden to its Assembly building in Shinjuku. They have also installed solar power generation facilities. The garden project began in 2002 and has been a sucess. They grow azalea, roses, juniper (cypress) and several types of magnolia on a 770 square meter plot. Visitors are welcome to enter the garden.

Solar power generator panels have been set up next to the green areas to supply power to the garden lights on the rooftop and to electrical devices in the Assembly building.

Read more on The Greening Project website.

Meanwhile, Tokyo is making plans to increase its reliance on renewable energy to 20% by 2020. In order to reach this goal, they want to promote "drastic energy efficiency measures first, then shift from the conventaional energy to renewable energy."

Source: Tokyo Renewable Energy Strategy (pdf)

Incidentally, the 20% goal is identical to what The European Council has adopted in its "extensive energy action plan for the period 2007-2009". Like Tokyo, they have "ambitious objectives for energy efficiency and renewable energy": by 2020, renewable energy will account for 20 per cent of total energy consumption. And the European Commission is aiming to to double the share of renewable energies in the European Union - from the present 6% to 12% by 2010. Latvia, Sweden, Finland and Austria have already achieved this goal: Sweden's share of renewable energy sources was over 29% in 2005, with a high hydroelectric production (water power).

Tokyo gets most of its power from other parts of Japan, including nuclear reactors, as well as oil from the Middle East. While I agree that energy efficiency measures will be very helpful, Tokyo's 20-30 million citizens will really have to make a huge effort if Japan's capital is to support wind energy, small-scale hydro power, energy from biomass, solar thermal applications, and especially photovoltaic (silicon module panels directly generating electricity from the sun’s light raher than heat) generation.