"GLOBE Tokyo G8+5 Legislators Forum" was held in Tokyo on June 28th and 29th. Japan was represented by Mr. Yatsu, the former Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan. Mr. Morley, the Minister of Environment of Mr. Blair’s regime, presided the 1st session on day 1 (I saw him at the G8 Environment Ministers meeting also), which started off with the greetings by Mr. Fukuda followed by key note speeches by Mr. Blair, the former Prime Minister of England, and Mr. Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan. Everybody spoke very well.
Photo1 Greetings by Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Blair and Mr. Abe
Photo2 Key note speech by Mr. Blair
Photo3 Mr. Abe
Though this forum was founded in 1989, since after the Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992 it constituted mainly of the nonpartisan congress members of all the countries. Framework for "G8 Gleneagles Climate Change Dialogue" was formed during the Gleneagles Summit held in 2005.
Video messages from the U.S. senators, Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Snowe were also played. A common theme that their messages held was that "With the new U.S. President, the Parliament, the large-size U.S. corporations, more than 500 U.S. Mayors and U.S. State Governors participating, America will make a historic transformation towards ‘Cap and Trade’ and formation of a ‘Low-carbon Society’." Japan, it seems, is the only country adopting a wait-and-watch policy. It is vital that politics, the government, the corporations as well as the citizens be well-prepared.
Discussions during the forum were highly dynamic.
I had a speech on day 2 (photo4), though it was a bit difficult for me since the session was on forests and biodiversity. I heard the request for a lecture a week before, and considering the fact that my speech was to be interpreted simultaneously in 9 languages so I decided to use the lecture that I had delivered at Kobe as a basic document, prepared a manuscript by including the above mentioned themes and circulated its copies among the interpreters as well the participants (the manuscript contained many errors since I was unable to proofread it sufficiently) before I spoke.
Photo4 My speech on Day 2