＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・菅首相のカーボンニュートラル宣言は、鳩山首相の京都議定書の失敗と同じ過ち！
Recently, we’ve been hearing a lot about “carbon neutrality,” “decarbonized society,” “zero CO2 emissions,” and “zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
In October 2020, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared in his policy speech that Japan aims to achieve “carbon neutrality by 2050,” meaning that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to zero overall by 2050.
“Carbon neutrality,” “decarbonized society,” “zero CO2 emissions,” and “zero greenhouse gas emissions” all mean the same thing: “making CO2 emissions net zero and not increasing the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.” Specifically, it’s “an approach that aims to achieve net-zero emissions not only by suppressing greenhouse gas emissions but also by capturing emitted carbon dioxide.”
1. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s Announcement of a Significant Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target
The incident began on the afternoon of April 22, 2021, when Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced at a meeting of the government’s Headquarters for Promoting Measures Against Global Warming that the target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 would be a 46% reduction compared to 2013 levels. This reduction target represents a significant increase from the current 26% reduction.
That evening, the Prime Minister attended the online Climate Change Summit hosted by President Biden and explained this plan.
The Prime Minister stated to world leaders that “this is consistent with the 2050 target (zero CO2 emissions) and is an ambitious goal: aiming for a 46% reduction by 2030. We will continue to strive towards an even higher target of 50%.”
However, I believe this announcement by the Prime Minister is a “showy and foolish performance” and a “foolish policy that does not serve Japan’s national interests and only imposes a burden on the Japanese people.”
2. Former Prime Minister Hatoyama’s failure of the Kyoto Protocol
A similar situation occurred during the time of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan.
In 1997, the “Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” (COP3) was held in Kyoto, and then-Prime Minister Hatoyama promised to “reduce emissions by 6% from 1990 levels.”
In 2002, the “Kyoto Protocol” concerning global warming was ratified by the Diet. At a meeting of relevant ministries held at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, a section chief from the Ministry of the Environment reportedly declared that “achieving the targets of the Kyoto Protocol is impossible.”
3. Global Warming Countermeasures are a Massive Waste of Taxpayer Money
I previously wrote an article titled “Is Japan Throwing 100 Trillion Yen Down the Ditch on Global Warming Countermeasures? A Warning Against Ineffective Waste of Taxpayer Money!”, but I believe that global warming countermeasures themselves are fundamentally unnecessary and wasteful.
I also believe that the “Policy to Ban the Sale of New Pure Gasoline Cars” is a hasty and problematic foolish policy.
4. Environmental measures such as those addressing the plastic waste problem only burden the public.
Solving the “plastic waste problem” requires improvements in waste disposal methods in Asian countries like China. Measures such as “charging for plastic bags,” “removing plastic bottles from vending machines,” and “charging for spoons” only burden the Japanese people and, even if necessary, are highly ineffective for environmental protection.
5. Don’t be fooled by the shrewd strategies of Europe, the US, and China regarding climate change and environmental protection.
I believe that climate change countermeasures and global environmental protection measures do not stem from pure, kind feelings such as “global warming is a global crisis” or “let’s protect the global environment,” but rather from “highly political diplomatic strategies by Western countries and China.”
After the war, there was the GHQ’s WGIP (War Guilt Information Program), a brainwashing program for the Japanese people. I believe these climate change countermeasures are also a form of brainwashing, and we must not be deceived.
6. “Carbon Neutrality by 2050” is an Unattainable Goal
The target of “reducing emissions by 6% from 1990 levels,” promised by Prime Minister Hatoyama under the Kyoto Protocol, was superficially achieved by using “emissions trading” to balance the books, but in reality, the reduction was only 2.8%, meaning it “failed.”
This represents a mere 2.8% reduction over 28 years, from 1990 to 2018. The “emissions trading” system, which involves buying emission reductions from other countries to achieve reduction targets, is also strange.
In other words, this target means that between now and 2050, we must reduce emissions by more than 90% compared to 2018 levels, even considering absorption activities, to achieve “net zero.”
Unless we’ve taken no measures whatsoever, we’ve only managed a 2.8% reduction despite nearly 30 years of various reduction efforts. This clearly shows how unrealistic and ambitious the goal of achieving “net zero greenhouse gas emissions” in the next 30 years is, and how impossible it is to reach by continuing our current reduction efforts.
Therefore, I predict that by 2050, the unmet amount will have to be bought back through “emissions trading,” placing an enormous burden on the public.
I believe “emissions trading” is a trick to transfer the wealth of developed countries like Japan to developing countries like those in Africa.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, while claiming his country is a “developing country,” merely stated his intention to improve its coal-dependent energy system and pursue “green development,” and outlined a policy to “gradually reduce coal consumption from 2021-2025 levels to 2026-2030,” showing absolutely no real commitment.
In fact, Japan should have launched a strong diplomatic campaign to urge China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to set even more ambitious reduction targets than “carbon neutrality.”
Such drastic reduction targets, frankly speaking, seem to be aimed at “weakening Japan’s national strength.” They set easily achievable targets for their own countries while imposing impossible targets on Japan (the Japanese Prime Minister himself, in an attempt to look good, deliberately set unrealistic targets, essentially shooting himself in the foot).
What’s worse, even when such unrealistic targets are imposed, Japanese industry tends to diligently strive to achieve them. Furthermore, the public, despite doubts about the effectiveness of measures like “charging for plastic bags” and “charging for spoons,” accepts them under the noble pretext of “protecting the global environment.”
“Solar power generation” also has various problems, such as the disposal of solar panels that have exceeded their lifespan; renewable energy also has its issues.
Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi stated in an interview with the Nikkei Shimbun that “we should consider making the installation of solar panels on houses and buildings mandatory,” but I believe this is just another one of his usual “careless, thoughtless, and purely performance-oriented statements.”
I hope that we will pause here and carefully consider whether these things are truly necessary, without being misled by beautiful names and justifications such as “carbon neutrality,” “decarbonized society,” and “zero CO2 emissions.” I also hope that we will see through the shrewd diplomatic strategies of the West and China behind this trend and take steps to avoid harming Japan’s national interests or weakening its national strength.