Japan’s unfortunate propensity for natural disasters has an upside: all the earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and heatwaves there mean that nowhere in the world has more expertise on how best to weather the storms. Today the Kansai Resilience Forum assembles in Kobe to discuss all things related to preparing for, and responding to, environmental extremes. With the effects of climate change ever more concerning, the Japanese government is keen to promote its expertise as a soft-power export. Also on the agenda will be discussions around plans to counter risks associated with staging the G20 Summit in June, September’s Rugby World Cup and next year’s Tokyo Olympics. To hear more about what’s on the forecast, listen to the latest episode of The Monocle Daily.

An effort to introduce driverless buses to the streets of Stockholm was announced this week. Bus-builders Scania and public-transport operators Nobina unveiled plans for two electric-powered, self-driving coaches that would serve a 5km-long stretch on the outskirts of the city by 2020. This isn’t the first time that driverless transport has been planned for the city and Christian Wolmar, author of Driverless Cars: On a Road to Nowhere, is sceptical. “Stockholm will have to create a whole separate infrastructure for the bus, with its own dedicated bus lane. The technology is also expensive – and the fact that the buses will be monitored by a security driver means they won’t even be saving on labour costs.”