With just weeks away from the start of the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), the international community should be ready to make serious efforts to work out an effective global agreement that will limit greenhouse gas emissions with the participation of the world's biggest and second-biggest emitters — China and the United States. This is all the more important as the Earth suffers from unprecedented meteorological disasters attributed to global warming.

While efforts to mitigate global warming are urgently needed, there is a worrisome situation in Japan. Politicians and businesses don’t seem to have a sense of crisis concerning the impact of climate change on people and the environment in many parts of the world, including this country. COP21 will be held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, not only with representatives of 196 countries but also with scientists, businesspeople and members of nongovernmental organizations taking part. It should serve as a chance for lawmakers, bureaucrats, business circles and citizens in Japan to consider and carry out what they can do to help achieve an effective international consensus on measures to fight global warming.

As a run-up to COP21, a weeklong working-level international climate meeting was held in Bonn last month. Developing countries expressed strong dissatisfaction with a draft text of agreement submitted by the co-chairs. They said advanced economies should shoulder a large portion of the cost to fight climate change because developed countries are primarily responsible for past warming through their industrial activities. They called for not only a transfer of funds and technologies from industrialized nations to developing countries to help them with their transition to low-carbon energy, but also assistance to defend against rising sea levels and big storms. Due to the clash of opinions between developing and developed countries, the meeting ended Oct. 23 without a draft that could serve as the foundation for an agreement at COP21.