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The risks of climate change pose the most critical and pervasive environmental threats ever to the security of the human community and to life on Earth as we know it. As your difficult negotiations have made clear, reaching an agreement is no easy task. Read more: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (8 December 1997) A powerful role can be played by the private sector in industrialized countries like Japan, as a source of innovation and action in promoting market-based climate protection policies and mechanisms. Read more: Japan's responsibility for the global environment (September 1997) After a long period of evolution, human beings have emerged as the dominant species on our planet. But we are a species out of control. For a people who have been divided by a conflict which engaged the attention and interest of the entire world community the prospect of creating in the demilitarized zone which separates the two states into which Korea is still divided into an ecological reserve is an exciting and enlightened one. Read more: Environmental issues in the Korean demilitarized zone (29 May 1997) In the final analysis, the behaviour of people as well as the priority of societies respond to the deepest moral, ethical and spiritual values of people. Read more: The cooperative mode of our relationships (10 May 1997) As you know, reform of the United Nations has now become an important political issue, particularly in the United States where it is linked closely with the future role of the United States in the UN. It was the US leadership following World War II that led to the creation of the UN and the US has since been its principal supporter both in financial and political terms, and is now leading the drive for reform, both to improve performance and reduce costs. To be sure, the United Nations and its organizations and agencies need to change to reflect the immense changes that have taken place in the world since it was created and meet the growing needs of the world community which must deal with the process of rapid and continuing change as it moves into the 21st century. |