UN General Assembly
2012

natural disasters and to make concrete contributions to nuclear safety. The Fukushima Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety, which is scheduled for the end of this year, and is co-sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the third World Conference on Disaster Reduction, which Japan plans to host in three years, will also provide meaningful opportunities to share those lessons. The warning from nature brought on by the unprecedented earthquake and massive tsunami posed a more fundamental question as to how we should sustain our civilization. From the moment of birth, human beings transform their own wisdom into the power to survive harsh natural environments. Despite advanced science and technology in modern civilization, however, the forces of nature have reminded us how weak human beings still are and that they have a fragile existence. Threats that may endanger human existence lie not only in nature, but in advanced civilization itself. There are a number of examples of those threats, such as environmental degradation, terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. What is required for