indicators.

Modern civilization, in some aspects, has not been able to live in harmony with nature because humans have been unable to acknowledge the laws of nature and fully recognize the massive impact they have on it. The first point is how to receive the natural world's gifts for our human well-being. For example, the resource gifts from each year would be accepted within the scope of their availability for that year, and finite resources used exceedingly sparingly, including re-using them. If resources are taken with a short-term view at rates exceeding nature's regeneration capacity, or are viewed as inexhaustible, and frugality and efficient are carelessly disregarded, these resources — which are finite — will be unexpectedly exhausted, and they cannot be used again. The second point is that when things unneeded including waste should be returned to natural world, they must be returned within the range of what can be taken in. After receiving gifts of resources from the natural world, humans have returned substances to that world that it cannot process and adequately recover from, and has dumped sufficient quantities of substances into the environment that cannot be handled due to their sheer volume. Today the impact of these practices on the environment has extended around the world. People are now agonizing over how to take responsibility for the environment that was altered so drastically through human activity. The third point is that we have not thought it important to live in harmonious coexistence with nature. Homo sapiens are only one species among the 30 million that are said to inhabit the earth. Regardless that there exist yet unknown aspects of natural mechanisms, our share in these mechanisms has grown explosively in recent years. In that process, many species are being brought to extinction at a rate unprecedented in the history of life. Overuse of a natural resource by one organism will exhaust that resource, and under natural conditions, the population of that organism will decrease. The limits of the environment were irrevocably altered to something unsuitable for the organism's own existence, so it is natural that its population will decrease. Is that the future we want?

The ideology of “Mottainai” and of being content with little is exactly the values based on the sustainability and as Japan has many long years of experience with it, we believe that we must not spare any effort to make that value system a global standard that extends across the gamut from technology to institutions. If measurements are distorted, they must be improved, and after new targets are fixed appropriately, their respective responsible parties must make the required efforts.

A pressing crisis is before us, which we must directly face. Humanity must make correct judgments. And not only that, we must steadily build upon our actions to produce positive results. Toward these goals, we will bring forth targets based on levels demanded by science, and we must formulate a plan to reach them with unanimous participation.

With the prerequisite condition that the main emissions-producing countries will build a fair, effective international framework, and can agree upon voluntary targets, Japan is calling for an international commitment to a 25% GHG emissions volume reduction by 2020. This is far from easy to accomplish. If pain comes, it must be shared. Even so, Japan aims to reach the intermediate targets by using every available means of government policy. With unwavering determination, we will open a bright future for humanity along the path toward building a new civilization free of excessive dependence on depletion-prone resources and energy.