2
recycling and solar batteries. Regardless of the varied and diverse issues that are
brewing, I believe that there was no shared sense of what shape the future should
take.
1.1.2 An Affluent Lifestyle for All
It was with this sense of the problems facing us that I formulated my “Vision 2050”
and put it forth in Chikyū jizoku no gijutsu. Vision 2050 represents an image to be
achieved by the mid-twenty-first century of a material circulating society that relies
on renewables in an energy-efficient way. It is based on the three principles of “saturation of man-made objects,” “improved energy efficiency,” and “developing renewable energy.” My premises when I formulated this were to see everyone in the world
achieve a standard of living on par with what developed countries enjoy today, while
at the same time solve environment- and resource-related problems. In addition, I
used the most leading-edge data I could obtain at the time of writing, while taking
up such separate topics as making vast improvements in energy efficiency and
expanding the use of renewables.
To say “everyone on the planet will enjoy material abundance at the level of
developed countries today” was an idea that nearly everyone in the world at the time
held to be idealized but an unrealistic theory, and that the planet would not be able
to bear if attained. Even today, most people still probably think so. However, did not
the United Nations pledge that “no one will be left behind” through its sustainable
development goals in 2015? Is there some vision of the world conceivable other
than this? For the U.N. to issue such a pledge at the moment when I was thinking
about Vision 2050 was unexpected, and it convinced me that I was not wrong. With
that in mind, when I logically analyzed the results of all the research I had undertaken about lifestyles and society as of 1995, trends in population and man-made
objects, technologies and their future, and the like, I realized that this was not an
idealized theory by any means but a feasible vision.
1.1.3 Why a Low-Carbon Society?
The global environment is changing at breakneck speed. According to the Fifth
Assessment Report (AR5) issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), the average annual temperature of the earth’s surface (both land
and the ocean’s surface) has risen 0.85 °C between 1880 and 2012. Furthermore, the
change projected for the end of the current century based on data for 1986–2005 is
for the average temperature to have risen by 0.3 °C at minimum and by as much as
4.8 °C.
Population growth is one factor behind the rising temperature. Over the 100 years
of the twentieth century, the world’s population rose from 1.7 billion to 6 billion.
1 The Message in “Vision 2050”
recycling and solar batteries. Regardless of the varied and diverse issues that are
brewing, I believe that there was no shared sense of what shape the future should
take.
1.1.2 An Affluent Lifestyle for All
It was with this sense of the problems facing us that I formulated my “Vision 2050”
and put it forth in Chikyū jizoku no gijutsu. Vision 2050 represents an image to be
achieved by the mid-twenty-first century of a material circulating society that relies
on renewables in an energy-efficient way. It is based on the three principles of “saturation of man-made objects,” “improved energy efficiency,” and “developing renewable energy.” My premises when I formulated this were to see everyone in the world
achieve a standard of living on par with what developed countries enjoy today, while
at the same time solve environment- and resource-related problems. In addition, I
used the most leading-edge data I could obtain at the time of writing, while taking
up such separate topics as making vast improvements in energy efficiency and
expanding the use of renewables.
To say “everyone on the planet will enjoy material abundance at the level of
developed countries today” was an idea that nearly everyone in the world at the time
held to be idealized but an unrealistic theory, and that the planet would not be able
to bear if attained. Even today, most people still probably think so. However, did not
the United Nations pledge that “no one will be left behind” through its sustainable
development goals in 2015? Is there some vision of the world conceivable other
than this? For the U.N. to issue such a pledge at the moment when I was thinking
about Vision 2050 was unexpected, and it convinced me that I was not wrong. With
that in mind, when I logically analyzed the results of all the research I had undertaken about lifestyles and society as of 1995, trends in population and man-made
objects, technologies and their future, and the like, I realized that this was not an
idealized theory by any means but a feasible vision.
1.1.3 Why a Low-Carbon Society?
The global environment is changing at breakneck speed. According to the Fifth
Assessment Report (AR5) issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), the average annual temperature of the earth’s surface (both land
and the ocean’s surface) has risen 0.85 °C between 1880 and 2012. Furthermore, the
change projected for the end of the current century based on data for 1986–2005 is
for the average temperature to have risen by 0.3 °C at minimum and by as much as
4.8 °C.
Population growth is one factor behind the rising temperature. Over the 100 years
of the twentieth century, the world’s population rose from 1.7 billion to 6 billion.
1 The Message in “Vision 2050”