Newsletter

May 17, 2011

 

2010 Talk Show: Seeking a Better Future, Rather Than Despair -- Part 3

Keywords: Newsletter 

JFS Newsletter No.104 (April 2011)

On December 31, 2010, an interesting talk show took place in Tokyo. This issue of the JFS newsletter presents the final part of the excerpts from the show.

Part 1
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/030621.html
Part 2
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/030682.html

Speakers: Reiji Yamada, comic artist of "Coconuts Period," "Zetsubo ni Kiku Kusuri (Medicine for Despair)," etc. Seita Emori, chief of the Climate Risk Assessment Research Section at the Center for Global Environmental Research of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) Yu Tanaka, executive director of the Mirai Bank (a non-profit organization; "Mirai" means future) Junko Edahiro, environmental journalist and chief executive of Japan for Sustainability

YAMADA: Why don't we talk about something cheerful and positive? How was your year in 2010? What would you say your key words were for this year?

EMORI: The most striking key word for me in 2010 was "transparency."

At the Fifteenth Session of the Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP15) held in Copenhagen in 2009, some nations prepared drafts for the meeting in secret. They actually tried to draft documents behind closed doors. Those who considered themselves major nations were undertaking the drafting process, and assumed that others should follow suit. This process ended in failure as it wasn't at all democratic. That is why COP15 failed to reach unanimous agreement.

The Sixteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) in 2010 in Mexico called for discussions by all delegations, saying that there should be no secret documents this time, and that every part of the process would be transparent. This was one of the achievements that gave me hope. By the end of the meeting, COP16 achieved mutual agreement. "Transparency" was the key word. We can't reach our goals when decisions are made in secret. The world seems to be moving toward openness.

I was just asked to be one of the authors and review editors for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so I participated in an authors' meeting held in China the other day. At the very beginning of the meeting, the necessity for transparency was emphasized. The most symbolic case is WikiLeaks. If one tries to hide something from the public, the damage caused when it is revealed is all the greater. Such hidden information is now easy to find thanks to the Internet, through which anyone can transmit information. I think people now realize that it is risky to hide information. I believe we will enter an era of transparency.

EDAHIRO: The most telling experience I had in 2010 was facing up to the most critical issue of all; how to deal with economic growth. This is what I'm going to work on next year.

Global warming and biodiversity crises are just symptoms of other, more fundemental problems. It is important to address global warming, but we can't solve that problem simply by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and burying it underground. The present measures against global warming are made on the assumption that economy will continue to grow. For the government and the industrial sector, economic growth has been the absolute good and they have not really concerned themselves with what effects a continually growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will have. That has been their main premise, so now they are trying to find the best way to reduce CO2 while expanding GDP.

There is a formula to mathematically describe human impact on the environment in an easy-to-understand way. This is called IPAT equation and expressed as; I = P x A x T. To quantify the impact of global warming, for example, Impact (I) equals CO2 emissions, and we can calculate this amount by multiplying Population (P) by Affluence (A) -- equalling GDP per capita -- by Technology (T). That is to say, the population, the value of expected GDP per capita and technologies used for production are factors to determine Impact (I). Employing energy-saving or renewable energy technologies decreases the variable T, which leads to a decrease in overall environmental impact (I).

The Japanese population will be shrinking, but people continue to seek more affluence. The nation has been trying to curb CO2 emissions associated with growing affluence solely through technology improvements, and this is the same for every country in the world. People say, "We have to continue economic growth." However, the T factor we would need to achieve event to maintain impacts at their present level would have to be an impossible figure. We have always had reservations about this situation, but the argument is that "If economic growth stops, our own retirement benefits will be reduced," and to this we are forced say "In that case, I want GDP growth, too."

As I am an environmentalist, I have always pointed out that something is basically wrong with this kind of GDP-oriented society. I don't think that a never-ending pursuit of GDP growth will bring well-being and happiness into our lives. On the contrary, developed countries including Japan seem to enjoy less happiness as the result of pursuing economic growth -- this is obvious from the data. That's why I have said again and again, "It is ridiculous to hold on to GDP and economic growth. More than anything, the simple fact is that the earth cannot sustain itself."

On the other hand, people in industry and the business community insist "Even so, we cannot agree to stopping economic growth." I have had difficulty in understanding their point of view before, but after listening deeply to them and learning their particular logic, I finally got it. The bottom line is, our entire economic structure is based on a growth-oriented economy. So, without economic growth, unemployment and bankruptcy will increase, the economy will slow down, and our daily lives will become seriously gloomy. This is all due to the way our economy is structured.

Environmentalists like me insist that, from a long-term perspective, the earth cannot sustain itself if we humans continue in our present lifestyle. People in the business sector disagree because they take a short-term perspective, saying "That might be true in the long run. But we are primarily concerned with the issues at hand." After all, there is a dilemma; the conventional pattern of economic growth is not sustainable, but the current situation would destabilize without economic growth. Though the environmental and business sides should have been holding positive discussions on to resolve this dilemma, each side has been fruitlessly advancing one-sided arguments, such as "The earth cannot sustain our present system," and "Jobs will be lost."

I recently undertook a study of the ideals of economic growth. A reconsideration of economic growth has been seen worldwide as well as in Japan. While studying this topic by myself and with various people through workshops, I drew up a plan for next year. My aim is to gain a new sense of value and/or think about economic models that are not based on the premises of economic growth in order to see how to present, not a black-and-white choice between pursuing economic growth or not, but a way to make decisions that strike a balance.

TANAKA: I devoted 2010 to collaborations with people in different fields, such as expressing my ideas with musicians through music and guest collaboration in a comic series called Oishinbo, a long-running cooking manga. I believe outreach to various fields is very important -- because most people do not feel like coming to gatherings on difficult environmental topics. We have to expand our channels to reach such people, right? So, I want to extend my wings wider next year and go on with my guerilla-style approach in many different fields.

YAMADA: I've been working with people from different fields, too! I've been struggling with the theme of how we should deal with growth, and I will go on with this in the coming year. I heard that the global population increases 220,000 every day. In Japan, however, there is a controversy concerning the working population in the near future because it is now decreasing due to Japan's lower birthrate. Increasing the working population here sounds like we will be generating clone forces, huh? I assume the mainstream believes without any doubt that we need more people in the younger generation to keep our economy growing. I'm taking this topic seriously and started studying to see if population and growth are good or bad for Japan, how we can achieve a balance, and what a resolution of this issue would look like.

One image I have of the world is like a Ferris wheel with Japan in upper gondola and the gondolas of China and India coming up, with Japan eventually going down. However, I have another image that I hope will replace this Ferris wheel, the image of a merry-go-round, having ups and downs, but no rider overtaking the others. I would like to see an image shift from a Ferris wheel to a merry-go-round in the future. A scientist told Edahiro-san one day that if we want to keep growing, it'll be impossible unless the earth keep growing bigger. I've never heard that the earth is getting bigger. I want to get such challenges straightened out next year.

I met various people this year, and saw they had ups and downs. I saw various good things about their lives and my own life, and it was also a time when I really felt "the world is still beautiful." Three hours remain for the year 2010. The end of this year showed me "beautiful things in the world." I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

TANAKA: Thank you very much, Yamada-san. OK, that's it for us tonight. Everybody, please enjoy the marvelous music and let's ring in the New Year together.


 

このページの先頭へ