To mark World Population Day on 11th July, JOICFP and the Council on Population Education held a special symposium entitled "Global Environmental Issues and Our Living," on 5th July at the Japan Press Center in Tokyo.

The symposium was supported by UNFPA, IPPF, with the collaboration of the Asian Population and Development Association, NPO 2050, and the Japan Family Planning Association.

In a keynote address, Yasushi Akashi, JOICFP President, President of Council on Population Education, and former UN Deputy-Secretary General, told the audience of around 200 that around 6.6 billion people were living in the earth now.

Though these people live in different regions and climates, and have different cultures, religions and ways of living, he said, the common problems of the earth require us all to go beyond these differences and solve our common problems together.

Akashi mentioned melting polar icecaps, loss of agricultural land, and species and habitat loss, and said that Japan had been suffering seasonal extremes of weather, including severe typhoons.

He said that although globalization brought economic benefits to some, others were living in poverty, providing breeding grounds for terrorism, and life-threatening diseases, including AIDS, as well as contributing to environmental destruction.

Akashi emphasized that World Population Day was a memorial day for us all to discuss ways to cooperate to solve common issues, and that we needed to discuss the environment as part of this.

He asked what we could do for our descendants and the future of the earth, what was the responsibility of government and the people, and what role Japan specifically could play as well.

Kiyoko Ikegami Director,
UNFPA Tokyo Office at the opening


A view of the symposium

Speaking on the UNFPA’s State of World Population Report 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth, Makoto Atoh, Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University, said that between 2005 and 2020, the world would see another 1.7 billion people, mostly in developing countries.

By 2020, he said, 45% of people in Africa will be living in an urban environment, compared with over 80% for Latin America and the Caribbean.

There was, he stated, a direct correlation between increased urbanization and a higher Human Development Index (HDI), but migration from rural areas often created slum conditions in urban areas and these people did not receive the benefits of urbanization.

In a panel discussion coordinated by Sumie Ishii, Executive Director, JOICFP, Katsuhide Kitatani, President, NPO 2050, explained that gender inequality was one of the major causes of poverty, and promoting women’s health, education, and social participation would help end poverty.

US$1.1 trillion a year is spent on arms, but meeting primary health, education and reproductive health and family planning needs, he said, would take US$33 billion, US$12 billion, and US$7 billion, respectively.

It was not that we didn’t have the resources to tackle these issues, but that we didn’t have the will, he opined.

(from left) Ishii coordinates the panelists:
Kitatani, Kawai, and Yamamoto

Ryoichi Yamamoto, Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, Tokyo University, spoke about the lack of success of the Kyoto Protocol, explaining that CO2 emissions had actually increased since then, not declined as agreed.

By 2009, he stated, the middle-class population of Asia would reach 400 million, and these people would want modern amenities, placing more burden on the environment.

He suggested stabilizing population, reducing consumption, and putting more efforts into developing environmental technology.

Kaoru Kawai, Certified Weather Forecaster, told the audience that in 1995, a major news item had been a rainfall of 97 ml per hour in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. Now, she said, that kind of weather is only a weather article as such rainfall is common.

Unusual weather, she stated, was a result of global warming, but what was the result of extreme weather on humans, she asked.

She thought it was up to everybody to make a difference, such as by unplugging electrical devices when not in use and not leaving them on standby.

Yuko Arimori, Japan’s UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador reported on her mission to Pakistan, explaining her observations on gender issues, as well the situation of reproductive health and people’s efforts to meet challenges in this field.