## Technologies to Support Measures for Mitigating Global Warming

The previous chapters explained that global warming resulting from human-caused massive $ CO_{2} $ emissions may threaten the basis of our living. This chapter will discuss the role of Japanese environmental technologies to assist international efforts to build a sustainable society by mitigating global warming and the significance of development and effective utilization of those technologies.

## Section 1: Transformation into a Sustainable Society

### 1. Policy for a “Sustainable Society”

Chapter 2 explained important organic interactions among diverse living creatures, the atmosphere, water and soil on the Earth that support material circulation, and that such a support system is essential for the continued survival of human beings. It also explained that human activities in recent years have polluted the atmosphere, water and soil, threatening ecosystems and their core element, biodiversity. Actually, more and more people have become aware of the fact that geo-environmental resources are exhaustible and limited. Now we need to build a “sustainable society” on this planet, with its limited resources, by making efforts to protect the material circulation, ecosystems and human society from destruction.

The concept of “sustainability” was introduced for the first time in 1987 by the U.N.’s World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in its final report, “Our Common Future” (known as the “Brundtland Report”). In the Brundtland Report, “sustainable development” is defined as development that “meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Since then, the idea of “sustainable development” has become widely known throughout the world. For example, this idea was introduced as a key concept to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, which were respectively agreed upon during the U.N. Earth Summit in 1992. Now the idea of “sustainable development” is a common keynote of geo-environmental conservation efforts in the world.

In the Third Basic Environment Plan, which was adopted during the Cabinet meeting in April 2006, a “sustainable society” is defined as “a society where we are able to ensure global and local protection of a healthy, nature-rich environment, protect human well-being for individual citizens and hand over such protection to future generations.” In order to build such a society, we need to solve existing problems regarding (1) limited resources on the Earth and (2) the limited ability of nature to manage human-caused pollution.

Mineral resources and fossil fuels are all limited. From the standpoint of the security of a stable supply of energy resources, it is important to reduce consumption, improve waste collection and recycling, and promote the development of alternative materials and the use of recyclable materials. For example, metallic materials are renewable and thus need to be recycled properly and efficiently. Also, replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energies such as solar energy or biomass should be promoted.

Regarding issue (2) above, we should make sure that the amount of human-caused emissions of pollutants will not exceed the potential of natural systems (the atmosphere, waters, soils, organisms, etc.) to handle them. For example, the excess of human-caused $ CO_{2} $ emissions over the potential of forests, etc. to absorb $ CO_{2} $ is a major cause of global warming today. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce and control $ CO_{2} $ emissions with an understanding of the potential of natural systems.

### 2. Age of Massive Consumption of Fossil Fuels

After the Industrial Revolution, society has established a mechanism in which industrial products of high quality and low cost are mass-produced through automated processes in large factories and are then mass-consumed by consumers. Through this mass-production/mass-consumption system, advanced countries have obtained fortune and prosperity far beyond what people had experienced before. Developing countries also seek to build the mass-production/mass-consumption structure with the hope of gaining similar fortune and prosperity.

It was fossil fuels including coal and petroleum that made it possible to materialize the said mechanism. Fossil fuels came to be