Mystery Event - What is the GEA International Conference 2015?

NHK, also recently known as the "Abe Channel" said today that the Prime Minister "was speaking at a conference of an international environmental NGO in Tokyo on Thursday."

NHK World: Abe: Japan will do its best for climate agreement

But NHK World would not tell us what NGO that was, so I did a search.

Neither google nor yahoo had any hints about a major NGO conference on October 15, 2015, so I went to the home page of the PM, and on its Japanese website (not very international) there was a note about today's event, ＧＥＡ国際会議２０１５ (J).

So I searched for that.

And found nothing, neither in Japanese nor in English, nothing about today's "international" event.

Turns out, the "international environmental NGO" is an affiliate of the Japanese government, here: Global Environmental Action (E). Among its "Membership Companies" you get Mitsui and Mitsubishi. "Supporting Members" are Tokyo Gas and TEPCO.

Here is the link to the 2015 Japan GEA promotional pdf file (E)

And even the website of this "international NGO" has no update about today's events, neither in Japanese nor in English (or in any other language).

Not very "non-governmental" - and certainly not very "international" - Do I need to say more?

So, wow, just what did Prime Minister Abe promise to do?

Abe was speaking at a conference of an international environmental NGO in Tokyo on Thursday. He said global-scale action is needed to tackle climate change and that he shares a sense of crisis with leaders of industrialized nations, islands and other countries. Abe said Japan will do all it can in Paris to forge a new global framework that is fair, effective and participated in by all countries. He stressed that Japan will fully use its low-carbon technology to help reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Abe also expressed intent to discuss global warming when Japan hosts the Ise-Shima summit of major nations next May.

Comments

Pandabonium said…
Abe promised nothing more than to bring up the topic. Typical.

The GEA is an NGO, and international in its scope. Jimmy Carter is listed as an International Adviser, as is Jose Maria Figueres, former President of Costa Rica (a country with an excellent environmental record I might add). It has been given an award by the UN.

Yes, most of the members are Japanese, but the organization itself operates outside of government control or finance, so technically it is an NGO. How do you suggest we get the message to the people who can do something about these issues?
10:24 am, October 19, 2015
Martin J Frid said…
Do join any NGO that you find works for your strongly held opinions, be it broadly (environment, climate change) or specifically (animal welfare, anti-GMO, dolphins...) but do join something, and make sure you check it out before joining.
1:39 am, November 01, 2015
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