Last year was such a disastrous year. How would America tackle the economic crises with its new president, I wonder?
Climate change is the major issue now for every country, and Japan must think seriously about its energy policy also. At the time of Prime Minister Fukuda administration, a special meeting for this issue was set up with president Okuda of Toyota as the chairperson to prepare a draft for the Toyako summit. Current administration is too occupied with other things, so it seems, that even works on Kyoto Protokol is halting. I understand that they cannot help it, but we must not take a wrong way. This is in a sense an opportunity for Japan.
Below are the handouts I’ve submitted to the meetings. URLs are given below. Here, I expressed part of my views on energy policy towards a low carbon society. What do you think? (The papers are in Japanese only.)
・Handouts of the 2nd Meeting with Prime Minister (April 5th )
・Handouts of the 3rd Meeting with Prime Minister (April 22nd )
・Handouts of the Committee of Agriculture, Liberal Democratic Party (Chairperson, Koichi Kato)
Through those handouts, I hope you can see that the national vision of Japan as I think is “To become an exporting country of food and clean energy by 2030.”
Draft a 10-year plan, and the first and second 5-year plans to go with it. Disregard the traditional system of policymaking, and write a cross-ministry/government first 5-year plan of “Mission, Strategic roadmap, Annual Objectives” with the participation and help of lots of people from academic, government, and industrial sectors.
By doing so, the Ministry of Finance would be able to set up more innovative budget plans and backup policies for the structural reforms. Of course, it is important to inform people about the progress on regular basis, as well as to keep the process open and transparent.
Since this is a long-term future plan, the work is for people at age 45 or younger. Of course, include non-Japanese as well as all sorts of hearings.
Those were my core message in my 50 minutes’ keynote lecture on December 8th (Mon.) on energy policy at a conference held under the auspices of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy as well as a meeting on eco-products hosted by Nikkei on December 11th (Thurs.). Both were attended by nearly 1,000 motivated people.
Do you say it is impossible by 2030? Then, who could tell a year ago, that Obama would become a president?
This national vision is a matter of politics and will of people.
“Yes, We Can”, it is.
Now, what do you think will be of Japan and the world in the year 2009?
