While we are already certain to face increasingly significant impacts of climate change across the globe, we have a narrow window to avert more deadly and costly consequences. Strengthening the partnership between the U.S. and Japan is vital in making advances towards solutions to the climate crisis, particularly the ocean crisis. The U.N. Decade of Ocean Science is calling to address the gaps in our knowledge of the ocean-climate nexus, and we must rise to meet the goals set forth by the U.S-Japan Climate Partnership.

CoastPredict was endorsed in an open call by the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science, and is one of the global programmes central for future initiatives. Though global integration of observing and predicting coastal areas has proven difficult, CoastPredict aims to produce a global international network capable of going beyond the fragmented coastal communities and coordinate the observing and forecasting systems of the world ocean coasts.

Using offshore wind energy as an example of a means towards achieving carbon neutrality, an important policy for Japan going forward, I would like to examine the legal issues involved in development that goes beyond territorial waters, expanding into the EEZ. There will be issues such as whether regulatory authority on offshore wind energy is included, without restrictions, under sovereign rights as prescribed in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as on how domestic laws will be ultimately applied. I hope to see developments in the expansion of offshore wind energy into the EEZ through such discussions on international and domestic laws.