JAPAN: Senior Citizens to Help Curb Global Warming

OSAKA (The Yomiuri Shimbun), July 4, 2006: Japan's largest organization for senior citizens hopes to curb global warming by utilizing the knowledge and creativity of elderly people. The Japan NGO Council on Aging (JANCA), with a membership of about 13 million, hopes to turn senior citizens into environmentally-aware role models, harnessing their knowledge and creativity to urge the public to engage in the conservation movement. The organization's guidelines state it is the responsibility of elderly people to pass on environmental values--such as preventing unnecessary waste--to the next generation and calls on them to seize the initiative. In addition to promoting actions by individuals, the organization also hopes to spread environmental activities to all areas of society. The immediate program includes a campaign to set air conditioning to 28 C in summer and to stop people from leaving their vehicle engines running while parked. The measures are also aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent, as targeted by governments after Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change took effect in 2005. "We hope to create specific programs that will allow us to gather knowledge that's in danger of being lost, such as the effective use of rain water and the effect of sprinkling water on the streets," said JANCA head Keiko Higuchi, who leads the movement and acts as director general of a women's group to improve conditions for the aging society. © The Yomiuri Shimbun