Congratulations on the attainment of your degrees, and the completion of your student life. To family members, congratulations. Representing the entire members of Kobe University, I extend our whole-hearted congratulations to you.
Today, Kobe University conferred Bachelor's degrees to 2673 undergraduates and Master's degrees to 1141 students who had completed the Former Period of Doctoral Degree Programs The university also conferred Master of Business Administration degrees and Juris Doctor to 101 students. Yesterday, the university also conferred 259 Doctoral degrees to students who had completed their course-work of Latter Period of Doctoral Degree Programs. It is the pride of the university to be conferring these academic degrees.
Changing Global Society
As all of you are about to enter into a new world, I am sure your hearts are filled with dreams and hopes to do great things for the world.
Looking back at mankind's recent history in technological advances, we see three large revolutions. The first is the Agricultural Revolution, followed by the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Information Technology or the IT Revolution is the third and the most recent, which brings us up to the modern day information society. The progress in Information Technology brought drastic changes to the speed and volume of information transmitted by the global society. This hopefully will remove barriers between nations, ethnics and language; giving way to strengthened democratic relationships among all global citizens. However, many researchers warn that this may cause unnecessary confusion, bringing about ethical and humanity related problems if we lack the sensitivity to receive and select the information, or understand each other.
The same also applies to other scientific technologies, which have achieved remarkable evolution since the Industrial Revolution. These brought affluence, convenience and comfort to society. However, as you know, it also left behind many serious problems such as global warming from greenhouse gases, acid rain polluting our forests and lakes and toxic substances emerging from waste.
In addition to global environmental changes, environmental pollutions and water shortages due to haphazard exploitation and the destruction of the natural ecology by invasive alien species are also becoming serious concern. The United Nations is holding the 10th "Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity" or COP 10 in Nagoya this October because of deep concern for the mass reduction of biodiversity. Human lives cannot exist without biological resources; if we neglect biodiversity, we suffer the inevitable consequences. This conference will have the same importance as a conference for global warming, which is attended by representatives from more than 190 nations. In Nagoya, representatives will discuss ways to maintain a healthy global environment from a biodiversity viewpoint. Time has come for the global society to focus its concerns on the protection of global environment and the sustainable development of biological diversity.
Rapid developments and changes in scientific technology have both good and bad aspects: It has conferred tremendous benefits to change the structure and system of society; while it has alienated humanity from nature, resulting in increasing distortions in global society. We must note that technological developments embrace such serious contradictions.
Global Warming
Now, let me talk about a major concern in the world today, global warming. The greatest source of global warming is energy consumption. With the world population of 6 billion growing at its present rate, the total population will most likely reach over 9 billion by 2050. Accordingly, the demand for energy will also increase. If for example, everyone in Japan were to use the same amount of energy as they do now, the energy consumption rate will be 3.5 times more, and the rate of greenhouse gas emission will increase exponentially. The result of a simulation predicts, in the worst case, the global surface temperature will increase by more than 4°, and extremely serious condition will encompass the entire globe. With such serious environmental destruction predicted, society is only starting to notice the severity and is trying to find a way out of this crisis.
The third session of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) or COP3 when the Kyoto Protocol was concluded in 1997 is generally considered to be the starting point of this global awareness. Based on the ‘Copenhagen Accord', agreed by members at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December, approximately 70 countries and regions submitted their mid-term ‘greenhouse gas emission reduction targets by 2020' to the UNFCCC Secretariat. Now that the greatest greenhouse gas producing countries, the United States, China, and other emerging countries, have all submitted their reduction targets, this awareness is reaching all parts of the world.
Japan, with some preconditions, is planning to draw up serious action plans to meet the target of reducing the emission level by 25% in comparison to its 1990 emission levels.
Some people are concerned that this reduction target is too drastic, may bring ill effect to domestic employment and daily lives; and ultimately lead to the collapse of Japanese economy and public finance. However, I have a different point of view.
Gathering knowledge to overcome
Nearly 40 years ago, the Central Council for Environmental Pollution Control proposed a regulation to cut nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by more than 90%. This so-called Japanese version of the Muskie Act, which was far stricter than the actual U. S. Act, met great opposition from the Japanese business community which was concerned with technical difficulties and the possibility of lowering competitiveness. Thanks to the painstaking efforts by Japanese industries and their researchers, a qualified NOx reduction technology was developed after a two-year delay in 1978. Since that time, Japanese automakers have led the world in the development of energy-saving and cleaner emission vehicles.
Though we cannot simply compare the social condition and the level of scientific technology back then with what it is now, the effort used to gather all possible knowledge to challenge a steep hurdle of 25% reduction will not be wasted. I believe the result brought upon by painstaking efforts will act as a trigger to lead the world in advancing and protecting the global environment for the future generations. It is impossible to solve such global scale environment and ecosystem issues with just results gathered from scientific fields. This can only be attained by using the combined knowledge of researchers from all academic fields.
At Kobe University, we have continually provided students with world's top class research and an education to foster a sense of humanity, creativity and internationality. Special effort is placed in the promotion of internationalization with an aim to foster people who will play active roles in, as well as earn respects from, the globally competitive society. Moreover, a new type of organizational structure, the Organization of Advanced Science and Technology, was established to further develop harmony between interdisciplinarity and integrity in the university's education and research system. This new organization is providing students with wider perspectives.
As students of Kobe University, you have all acquired the creative ability to overcome global-scale problems that I mentioned a while ago. It is my sincere hope that you put this ability to work toward the development of a sustainable society to ensure a harmonious coexistence between mankind and the natural environment.
