Kimiko Hirata

Kimiko Hirata (平田 仁子, Hirata Kimiko, born 1970) As of December 2022, her grassroots work has led to the cancellation of 17 planned coal-power plants. Hirata also led landmark coal divestment campaigns against Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ. In 2022, she was named to the BBC 100 list of influential women. She first became aware of the magnitude of climate change during the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which was covered widely in the Japanese media, and started reading books including Earth in the Balance by Al Gore. She became interested in international activism while taking a course taught by Masako Hoshino, an activist who had helped to launch one of Japan's first NGOs.

After graduation, she went to work at a publisher of academic texts. In 2021, she was a visiting associate professor at the Chiba University of Commerce.

Career as activist In 1997, she returned to Japan to campaign at COP 3, where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted.

Hirata realized that Kiko Network needed to shift its focus from policy-driven work to grassroots campaigning,

To put additional pressure on Japanese policymakers, Hirata collaborated with NGOs internationally, including the Climate Action Network, which gave Japan multiple "Fossil of the Day" awards for "'doing the most to achieve the least' in terms of the progress on climate change". The international outcry against Japan's coal policy was covered extensively by the Japanese media; Hirata coordinated protests at several COP meetings,

As of December 2022, Hirata's grassroots campaign calling attention to their potential impact in terms of air pollution and climate change had led to the cancellation of 17 out of 50 planned coal-power plants. Proposed by Kiko Network with the backing of six Nordic funds in mid-March, it was the first shareholder-led climate-change resolution proposed for a listed company in Japan, One month after the motion was proposed, Mizuho announced that it would stop issuing loans to new coal plants in June of that year, and that it planned to exit coal investments by 2050; one day later, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group also announced that it would stop issuing loans to coal plants in May. In June 2020, although the resolution did not pass, it secured higher-than-expected support, with 35 percent of Mizuho shareholders voting in favor. In January 2022, she established Climate Integrate to focus on accelerating decarbonization by working with partners in Japan and internationally. In July 2022, Climate Integrate released a report, "Getting Lost on the Road to Decarbonization: Japan's Big Plans for Ammonia".

Personal life Hirata lives in Tokyo with her husband and two children.