During the Fall and Winters semesters, GW’s Environmental and Energy Management Institute worked with European Commission counterparts on joint efforts to address energy, climate and geopolitical challenges related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A key event in that process was a September 19, 2022 meeting with EC officials Daniel Calleja Crespo (Director General, Legal Service of the European Commission), Dr. Klára Talabér-Ritz (Legal Service of the European Commission), Vassilis Coutifaris, (Senior Public Diplomacy Officer, Delegation of the EU to the US), and Mercedes García Pérez (Head of Global Issues and Innovation, Delegation of the EU to the US).
Attendees from GW included Law School Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew, Law School Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies Rosa Celorio, Law School Assistant Dean for Energy Law Donna Attanasio and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Law School Assistant Dean for Environmental Law Randall Abate, EEMI Director Jonathan Deason, EEMI Deputy Director Joe Cascio, EEMI Research Professor Alex Beehler, EEMI Visiting Scholar Ambassador Andras Simonyi, EEMI Visiting Scholar Ed Saltzberg, and EEMI Director of Operations Mukes Kapilashrami.
That meeting was followed by continuing discussions of ways in which GW and the EC can work together in areas such as student and faculty exchanges and joint research through an overall GW-EC partnership MOU that is being coordinated though the SEAS-based EEMI. Work is continuing with the EC Delegation to the U.S. that is located new the Foggy Bottom campus at 22nd and K Streets to develop more specifics of an overall GW-EC partnership, with EEMI’s main focus on the EC Directorates of Energy and Climate.
A major step that direction is the development of a SEAS Center for Global Climate and Energy Security, located within the EEMI. A proposed for the new Center has been submitted to the SEAS Committee on research.
The EC vision on balancing the twin challenges of energy security and climate change management is summarized in the slides prepared that can be seen at DG Calleja Presentation on Energy Security and Climate Change Management at GW.