Given that Climate Change international conference COP25 is held in Spain in December, the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies organized a movie screening of Climate Change documentary; "Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" (2017) featuring Al Gore, a former Vice President of U.S.A. This movie is to articulate current Climate Change impact we face on earth, the movement to address this issue as well as backlash against it, and tough negotiation for reaching agreement in COP21, all of which are pictured from the viewpoint of Al Gore. 

 

　On top of the movie, was a briefing by Mr. Takeshi KAWAKAMI, Director of Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), about how we can create a society of net-zero emission of greenhouse gases. According to his guidance, students were facilitated to imagine the idealistic world of zero-emission in 2050, and encouraged to write down their image. 

 

　In this movie showed messages from Al Gore that we must raise our voice, use our vote and take actions. Another storng message is a need for us to have HOPE. In this sense, the process of picturing idealistic society in 2050 and writing it down should be a big step forward to realize our hope. 

　

　Al Gore also stresses out this message; "After the last NO comes a YES, and on that YES the future world depends." The mission of our graduate school is to contribute to achieving sustainable world by means of academic approach. Seeing this sort of documentary to comprehend the real issue of sustainability should be an effective tool to have inspiration and to move forward our academic work.

 

（Naomi INOUE, Associate Prof., Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies）