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2021 October 6 - 12 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Using Manabe's winning of Nobel Prize as opportunity, let's make collective effort to curb climate change

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

This year's Novel Physics Prize will be awarded to Manabe Shukuro, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University, and two other scientists for groundbreaking contributions to the prediction of climate change.

Their achievements served as a useful reference for climate policy discussions in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leading to the IPCC 6th Assessment Report which attributes many extreme weather events to human activity and warns that weather disasters will cause a greater deal of damage if the current process of global warming continues unabated.

Taking such a warning given by the world's scientists seriously, the Japanese Communist Party proposed a strategy to effectively deal with the climate crisis. The strategy aims to reduce Japan's CO2 emissions by 50%-60% by 2030. Using Manabe's winning of the Nobel Prize as an opportunity, let's make a collective effort to curb climate change!

Science academies from 13 nations, including the Science Council of Japan, are calling for a recovery in basic research funding.

In Japan, however, the Abe and Suga governments placed an emphasis on applied research rather than basic research. Present Prime Minister Kishida Fumio regards science and technology as a tool for Japan's economic growth strategy, showing no remorse for the past government policies causing a deterioration in Japan's basic research capabilities.

It is necessary to realize a change of government and make a policy shift to promoting basic research based on researchers' intellectual trajectories.