東京大学公共政策大学院 | GraSPP / Graduate School of Public Policy | The university of Tokyo

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2024年10月12日、13日の二日間、今学期開講中のキャンパスアジアプログラム事例研究「CAMPUS Asia Joint Course: Public Policy in East Asia and Japan II」の一環で、学生と教職員、修了生、そして今回のトリップを企画した「ふくしま部」（福島浜通り地区でのスタディツアーを企画開催している一般社団法人で、キャンパスアジアの修了生が理事を務める）を合わせた合計43名で福島県双葉郡を訪問しました。

本科目の目的は、日本の公共政策を実践的に学び、多様なステークホルダーによる講義と現場でのフィールドワークを通じて、国レベルと地方レベルでの政策実装に至るプロセスを学ぶことです。当院に在籍しているキャンパスアジアプログラムの日本人、中国人、韓国人、シンガポール人学生だけでなく、プログラム外の日本人学生や各国の協定校からの留学生も多数履修しています。今回はキャンパスアジアの修了生6名が自費で、全行程に同行しました。

一日目には、政府の補助金で0歳児から中学生を対象として2023年大熊町に開校した「学び舎・ゆめの森」で斬新な取組やデザインを教育に取り入れている様子や東日本大震災・原子力災害伝承館を視察しました。夕食は、地元住民を交えてのBBQで交流を深めました。

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二日目には、地元住民の方や復興関係のキーパーソンと対話する貴重な機会をいただきました。「東北の生産者は『被災者』ではなく『ヒーロー』だ」といって食を通じて福島で活動されている高橋大就さんの畑でのアクティビティも体験しました。また、震災遺構浪江町立請戸小学校の見学、壊れたままの家屋・復興への希望を描いた壁画・更地が入り混じる双葉町の町歩きをしました。

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二日間のフィールドワークを通じて、震災のリアルな惨状を肌で感じつつも、復興へ向けた元気な取組事例も垣間見ることができました。また、本郷キャンパスから刻々と放射線量を計測した数値をリアルタイムで共有し、本郷キャンパスと双葉町のホテルではほとんど差がないことも分かりました。ネットからの情報や机上の学問では決して得ることのできない体験を通して知見を深めることができ、参加者各々の視点で、得るものが多かったのではないかと思います。

学期最後には、学んだことの集大成として、グループに分かれて福島の復興に関する政策提言のプレゼンテーションを行います。

Today's class in 6th period is cancelled.

Makeup class will be held on January 15th, Wednesday, in 6th period.

Please refer to UTOL information section in detail.

The higher temperatures brought about by UHI stem from a combination of effects, including greater absorption of heat in road and building materials, ‘canyon’ heat-trapping of tall structures, and waste heat from cars and facilities. Exacerbated by climate change, heat-related stress and mortality risk will increasingly pose a hazard for the world’s cities, which accommodate a growing majority of the population.

To anyone who has had the chance to visit Thailand’s modern-day metropolis, the implications of UHI might be enough to trigger more than a few tropical flashbacks. During its infamous dry season, UHI raises temperatures in Bangkok another 6–7°C, awarding it the fourth highest for heat exposure in the world. Causes for such extreme conditions include limited green space, poor urban design, extensive air conditioning and high vehicle emissions. In light of the dire predictions of climate change, what Bangkok is experiencing today potentially foreshadows a fate awaiting many other cities in the world. Hence, the Bangkok government faces an opportunity to set a precedent which other regions, particularly those in Southeast Asia recognised to be highly climate vulnerable, could follow great interest.

Yet, despite all the incentives to address the problem, the Thai and Bangkok administrations have shuffled their feet, stifled by weak governance, economic priorities, and bureaucratic obstacles. The challenge marked by the BangCool proposal is to find long-term solutions to the fragmentation of governance and lack of collaboration with private stakeholders, and devise a process to align the interests of each party. At the same time, it aims to promote public awareness of the critical effects of UHI, particularly in low-income communities in densely urbanised areas who are disproportionately vulnerable.

Thailand’s national policy for land use has a history which can be summarised as passive. An official was once quoted as admitting “our department focuses more on economic rather than environmental priorities”. At a local level, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has several divisions assigned to heat adaptation; however, collaboration is rare, and no policy directly addresses the problem of UHI. Its City Planning Department’s “comprehensive” 2013 urban land use plan notably failed to protect its remaining green space, due to a lack of cross-departmental communication and insufficient fines for breaches.

Compounding the problem is Bangkok’s private sector, which has little history of engaging with environmentally friendly building projects. Bangkok is provides a golden example of the notion “Whenever there is a chance to turn a piece of land into a commercial space, developers always build the maximum.” It is clear that more proactive leadership is needed to issue incentives to developers to drive long-term countermeasures to UHI.

The student team’s proposal details a pilot to initiate this key public-private linkage, aiming to serve as a model for natural cooperation that can propagate throughout society. In the first phase, a task force will be assigned to spread awareness of the problems of UHI and their possible solutions. As a lack of public understanding was cited as hindering progress in the past, it is important to facilitate greater local community involvement and fair oversight of the infrastructure development process. This phase will include a study between local authorities and private developers to prove the concept of this collaboration, including subsidies for measures such as painting roofs white and planting vegetation.

The outcomes will be used in the second phase to implement incentives for businesses, including a rating system for sustainable buildings and revised purchasing criteria for public procurement. Again, transparency and involvement of stakeholders from the start of discussions will be key to effective adoption. Noting other similar initiatives which have been successful in the past, the implementation strategy includes forming partnerships with local universities, NGOs and the private sector, recruiting volunteers from local colleges and communities, and involving real estate developers for innovative UHI measures.

In the pilot’s implementation, BangCool would aim to cover 3,000 residential roofs in one of Bangkok's hotspot districts, such as Udom Suk, Khlong Toei or Huai Khwang. Monitoring and evaluation will be facilitated by installing temperature sensors and energy meters in selected homes while collecting feedback from residents. For funding, the initiative will appeal to local government, the private sector and international bodies which have previously backed UHI initiatives.

Regarding the crucial issue of division of responsibility, clear lines between national government ministries and the BMA will be drawn, discouraging developers from circumventing land use planning regulations. Furthermore, centralizing information on land use and infrastructure projects in the city offers considerable value to the BMA. Integrating this data with advanced technologies such as remote sensing and satellite imagery will enable local authorities to pinpoint areas of Bangkok's highest at risk from UHI, facilitating targeted intervention strategies.

Indicators to evaluate the proposal’s outcomes can be regularly monitored along the results chain, spanning from green rating building awards and reduced heat-related hospitalisations and deaths in the short-term, to improved health metrics and increased private sector investment in the long-term.

While the team has tailored the aims of BangCool to address specific needs of the local community, the project’s inclusive collaborative infrastructure can scale to Bangkok’s 50 districts and other cities internationally. Similarities in geography, demographics and socio-economics in South and Southeast Asian regions mean that Bangkok could set a standard in UHI mitigation, as well as provide an iterative model to deal with a range of pubic-private policy problems.

As proven by its chequered history, effective management of Bangkok's UHI problem is not a simple matter of funding urban infrastructure projects. A sustainable, long-term solution requires a process that ensures buy-in from the government, developers and local communities while reducing misalignment between stakeholders. The team’s solution in the Bangkok Cooling Initiative would positively influence the design of infrastructure through data-driven and locally-led prioritisation. The fruits of such cooperation would not only herald a new era in green development, but allow in the air for much-needed community perspectives on living together with businesses, governments, and a global future.

 

(Edited by Clement Ng)

This blog post was originally written as a proposal to the 2024 Global Public Policy Network Conference by a student team at GraSPP (Junya Eriguchi, Emily Murnane, Bradley Murray, and Taishin Noble) in December 2023.

The full version is available from the link below.

(Final Proposal) Bangkok Cooling Initiative: Incentivizing Private Investment for Urban Heat Mitigation in Bangkok, Thailand 

Related links

GPPN Annual conferences

GraSPP Policy Challenge 2023

Sorry, this entry is only available in Japanese. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

公共政策大学院ではキャンパスアジア・プラスという留学プログラムを実施しています。

2024年10月募集を控え、キャンパスアジア・プラスの説明・相談会を行います。（予約不要）

キャンパスアジアについて興味があるという方、実際に応募しようとしている方、お気軽に参加してください。みなさんの質問にお答えします。

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令和7（2025）年度東京大学大学院公共政策学教育部専門職学位課程（公共政策大学院）入学試験合格者（一般選抜・職業人選抜）は、以下のPDFファイル記載のとおり。

合格者（PDF）

This course aims to deepen understanding of East Asian political, economic, and social issues through multidisciplinary analysis. It is designed for students participating in the Campus Asia program but if you are interested in interacting with international students from East Asia, please register for the course.

The tentative schedule of lectures (subject to change) is as follows: -Guidance -Visit to the Japanese Government/Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (subject to change) -Group discussion with students -Field trip -Guest lecture

This course is open from A1 to A2. The timetable shows two consecutive lectures, but as this is a two-credit course, we meet irregularly. Please read the guidelines in UTOL carefully. Details of the timetable will be given on the first day of the course, so please attend the first meeting (October 2nd) if you wish to register for this class.

Non-CAMPUS Asia students interested in registering should submit the Application Form, which includes a Statement of Purpose and a PDF of TOEFL scores (if you were required to submit TOEFL scores during the admission process).

The capstone project course, a unique and integral part of GraSPP’s curriculum, offers students a rewarding learning opportunity. It allows students to engage in independent projects in a team setting, addressing real-world problems at the client’s request. This challenging experience, as the word “capstone” suggests, is typically reserved as a final assignment for students with the necessary knowledge and skills acquired during the enrolment years to tackle real-world challenges. However, GraSPP, as a professional school, encourages first- and second-year students to take capstone project courses, recognizing their potential and maturity.

One of the capstone project courses offered since the academic year 2023 is Asia’s Geoeconomic Landscapes with Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm, as the client.

As a practical training course with an active learning approach, students worked in teams under the instructors’ guidance. Their deliverables were reviewed and submitted to the client as if the students ran a real-world consulting project. The consulting assignment was to produce a report to assist a semi-fictional Japanese company in developing a business strategy under given scenarios in Asia’s geoeconomic reality and seek public policy implications.

The course provided hands-on professional writing and communication training to prepare students for future professional positions addressing various geoeconomic challenges in the public and private sectors.

Teaching staff and client representatives

The teaching staff and client representatives in the academic year 2023 were the following. All the statuses and affiliations of the persons are as of December 2023.

Teaching staff

Toshiro Nishizawa, Professor

Shiro Armstrong, Visiting Lecturer (Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy of The Australian National University and Editor of the East Asia Forum.)

Michio Ueda, Geopolitical Strategy Consultant

Bain & Company representatives

Azusa Owa, Partner, Tokyo

Sho Ikeno, Partner, Tokyo

Kaori Nogami, Manager

 

Student voices

“I strongly recommend this course for the following reasons. First, this course provided students with intensive professional training, including teamwork, problem-solving, presentation, and report writing. By preparing a corporate geoeconomic strategy under the guidance of a real consulting firm, I gained a better understanding of how interwoven geopolitics could influence the business world and what kind of deliverables would meet professional standards. Second, this course is a perfect networking opportunity. We got to present in front of people from Bain & Company. Not only did we learn a lot from them, but we were able to show our ideas and increase our presence in the world-class consulting firm. Moreover, the boot camp increased our exposure to professionals from Bain & Company. This was an excellent opportunity for students interested in consulting firms.”

“I appreciate the practical approach of this class. More than knowledge, it taught us skills that will be usefully and easily transferable to other classes and future professional experiences. The well-organized course had complementary phases (scenario planning and consulting case). The clear and structured methodology we learned is unique. The iterative approach and continuous exchanges with the instructors and client representatives from Bain & Company also helped us a lot. They allowed us to understand the consulting world. Prof. Armstrong’s lectures complemented the class and gave us a different, more academic perspective on the issues we dealt with.”

“Enjoyed the opportunity to work on a mock-up consulting case guided by professionals in the field. I recommend it to anyone who’d like to be exposed to consulting work or the professional services industry in general.”

“The course surely had the most interesting and stimulating teaching approach I have ever experienced at GraSPP. In addition to finely grasping the geopolitical issues specific to Asia amidst the increased tensions between China and the United States, it allowed us to be familiar with the methods and requirements of the professional world. I produced comprehensive deliverables on an exciting consulting case with my team members. The entire team of instructors and professionals overseeing this course showed a benevolent demand that pushed us to excel and improve. I learned a lot. Thank you!”