KAZE, November 2019
No More Depts, No More Over-Exploitation of Earth s resources
Konoe FUJIMURA
As widely reported, Greta Thunberg and young people all over the world are
criticizing that global leaders do not at all seriously consider young people s future.
The youth are expressing their anger because adults are only talking about theshort-term economy.
We, adults, have been hungrily seeking uninterrupted growth leaving ahuge amount of debt to future generations. Moreover, we are depriving them ofresources necessary for their future living and even of their rights to conduct soundeconomic activities in their generations.
○ Debt - Cumulative CO2 emission budget deficit
According to IPCC, to avoid more than 2 degrees C increase of temperature(at which human society will fall into crisis), the upper limit of cumulative CO2
emissions is 2.9 trillion tons. However, since 1870, we have already emitted 1.9
trillion tons, so only 1 trillion tons of CO2 left for us to emit in the future. We are
currently emitting 50 billion tons of CO2 every year, meaning we will reach the upperlimit in 20 years. If this goes on, current teenagers, when they reach their 30 s, will
be frequently suffering from such extreme weather events as we saw this year suchas heatwaves, heavy rainfalls, desertification, and tornados. At that time, it is highly
possible that human beings will face various difficulties in their daily life and will not
be able to conduct several activities necessary for us to lead a human life. As ameans to decrease CO2 emissions, some countries like Japan still stick to nuclear
power generation. However, as widely known, nuclear wastes have a long half-life oftens of thousands of years. Currently, a total of 17,000 tons of high-level nuclear
wastes (their disposing method is yet to be identified in Japan) exist in Japan and 2.5
billion tons in other countries, which will increase by 1,000 tons/year if all existing
nuclear power plants are operated. How can we describe this serious situation otherthan our Dept for the Future?
○ Resource deprivation/exploitation from the future generation

Regrettably enough, we have already got our hands on various natural
resources which should have been conserved for future generations. It is reported
that natural resources have devastated by 58% in forty years (1970-2020). The
forest area in 1990 was 41.28 billion ha, but it was decreased to 39.99 billion ha in2015, and the total forest area decreased in the past 25 years equals to the landarea of the Republic of South Africa, according to the Global Forest Resources
Assessment 2015. More critical is the decrease in species. Almost 40,000 species aresaid to become extinct in 1975-2000. Forests, besides absorbing CO2, are areservoir of various species. A variety of creatures and other biological species areliving there, which will make a precious gift of nature. However, the rapid expansionof farmland and pasture, as well as other unsustainable land management, havecaused forest/land degradation, which will negatively affect food production in thefuture. Moreover, we have tapped even underground resources in various parts of
the world. We are developing deep-sea resources and mining thousands of meters
for shale gas which should be saved for future generations. These acts of humankinds, it seems to me, are depriving our children/grandchildren of their importanteconomic resources.
The Ecological Footprint analysis indicates that already in the 1970s, afterlavishly spending natural resources and wasting various materials all over the world,
our economic activities exceeded the environmental capacity of the earth. If thecurrent world population live like what we do now in Japan, we will need 2.8 earths,
and 5 earths are required if they live like Americans.
Despite those disparate situations of today s world, many people, especiallysocial leaders, are driven by a strong desire for wealth, which makes us feel deeplydepressed. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his policy speech at thebeginning of the current Diet session that his government will prioritize “economy”
and overview the diplomatic developments from a global point of view. However, hisspeech did not at all touch upon climate change issues or the Paris Agreement andonly slightly mentioned the marine plastic issue.
The other day, I, together with my colleagues of Green Alliance Japan,visited the Nippon Keidanren (Japanese Business Federation) Secretariat to find out
any common ground. Unfortunately, they just repeated that they are voluntarily
taking all possible measures against global warming following their “VoluntaryAction Plan”. They do not even appear to be reflecting on their inability to reduce
CO2 emission or on the loss of many lives/assets every year due to climate disasters.

In the meantime, another serious climate disaster attacked various parts ofJapan this September-October, again claiming many lives and assets. Its impacts on
the economy (agriculture as well as infrastructure such as rail services, etc.) werequite serious. We, together with scientists, have been warning against these criticalsituations but our voices have not been listened to. Therefore, we cannot but saythat this is a man-made disaster caused by the current government which has been
disregarding our warnings and has not taken any meaningful action to combat global
warming. Of course, citizens are responsible for their indifference to and lack of asense of crisis, but it is the national government that is mainly responsible for theglobal level climate change issues.
By now the government should have learned that they have to spend ourhuman/material/financial resources on disaster prevention projects, rather thanexpensive military equipment. Their commitment to quick recovery from climate
disasters is imperative, and moreover, they should seriously consider adaptation
policies to minimize potential damages/losses and take every measure to protect
future generations from potential climate disasters.
Now is the time for the government to sit down and squarely face climatechange issues for our children, and we the voters should keep watching thegovernment. We do not want to give up our responsibility to future generations.