Timothy A. Gelatt Dialogue on the Rule of Law in East Asia: Climate Change in Asia-Pacific
Panel 3: US-Japan Partnership in Climate Change
Friday, March 25, 2022
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Eastern Time)
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This event is co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.
About the Event
Discussions of US-Japanese cooperation often focus on geopolitics and trade. This panel will examine the ways in which the two governments, working separately and together, have shaped the global architecture for addressing climate change. Tomoaki Ishigaki, a minister at the Embassy of Japan to the United States, and Pete Ogden, vice president for energy, climate, and the environment at the United Nations Foundation, will explain how the US and Japan have interacted with each other and other major players in climate negotiations, analyze the dynamics between domestic constraints and international action, and suggest areas for closer cooperation to address the accelerating global crisis. Bruce Aronson will moderate the discussion.
About the speakers
Bruce Aronson is a resident affiliated scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU School of Law and a non-resident research associate at the Japan Research Centre at SOAS, the University of London. He also serves as an outside director at a listed Japanese pharmaceutical company. He has been a tenured professor of law at universities in the United States and Japan and a corporate partner at a major New York law firm. His main area of research is comparative corporate governance with a focus on Japan. He is co-editor of a textbook, Corporate Governance in Asia: A Comparative Approach (with J. Kim).
Tomoaki Ishigaki is minister of congressional affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington. This is his third assignment in the US as he has previously served in the Embassy (1997-1999) and the Japanese Mission to the UN in New York (2010-2013). Since joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 1994, he has been involved in various multilateral and bilateral negotiations including the COP22 and COP23 climate change negotiations, international trade at the WTO, international humanitarian law, and the Arms Trade Treaty at the UN, G7, and G20 meetings. Between 2018 and 2020, he served as the deputy cabinet secretary for public affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office, where he was in charge of international media relations and public diplomacy. In his most recent prior position as director of the Economic Policy Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he oversaw Japan’s economic diplomacy. He has lectured at the Department of Law at Keio University, taught international relations at the University of Tokyo, and taught international environmental law at the graduate school of law at Kyushu University. He has published a number of academic papers and contributed to books in the fields of international law, disarmament affairs, trade, and climate change policy.
Pete Ogden is vice president for energy, climate, and the environment at the United Nations Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was senior fellow for international energy and climate policy at the Center for American Progress, senior advisor and fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, and senior advisor at the Rhodium Group. During the Obama administration, he served in the White House as senior director for energy and climate change on the Domestic Policy Council and director for international climate change and environmental policy on the National Security Council, as well as at the State Department as chief of staff to the special envoy for climate change. Before his government roles, he was the chief of staff at the Center for American Progress. His writing on energy and climate issues has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and other outlets.
Best regards,
Jessica Chin (she/her/hers)
Communications & Administration Manager
U.S.-Asia Law Institute
NYU School of Law
(212)-998-6696
