▼Speech by Professor Kaoru Sekiyama, Dean GSAIS

Introduction of Speaker by Professor Yosuke Yamashiki▲

▼Lecture by Ms. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UNEP

Q&A▲

▲Group photo with speakers

▲Group photo with audience

On September 30, 2022, based on the academic exchange agreement with Kyoto University, a special lecture by Ms. Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, was organized at the 3rd International Conference on Advanced Integrated Studies in 2022. As an educational seminar, a hybrid event was held at Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall.
 
Professor Kaoru Sekiyama, Director of the Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability introduced Kyoto University and her program. Professor Yosuke Yamashiki, who is the focal point of the MoU, then talked about the 20-year history of substantial cooperation between the United Nations Environment Program and Kyoto University.
 
Ms. Andersen’s lecture focused on the “triple planetary crisis,” structure which includes climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and global-scale pollution and waste problems. The results of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP) and themes that should be discussed regarding climate change and biodiversity crises introduced, and specific examples of the issues that should be focused on were presented. However, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which was established by UNEP in October 2013, and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in February 2022 regarding pollutants and waste do not currently have a unified international treaty. There was an introduction to the consensus building process, and there was a presentation full of conviction that our efforts will be able to maintain the global environment for the future.
 
After that, we took questions from many of the participants before the lecture ended.
Since October 2013, the United Nations Environment Program and Kyoto University have concluded our MoU, and proposals have been made for cooperation in environmental education, water resource management, and mutual staff exchanges.