Making Japan carbon neutral by 2050 is huge challenge

Technological innovations and bold social changes are called essential

20210128 Solar panel and Suga

The government of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has advanced the date of achieving a "decarbonized society" to midcentury. (Source photos by Uichiro Kasai and Koji Uema)

JUNICHI TAKI, Nikkei senior staff writer

TOKYO -- As Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared recently that Japan will become carbon neutral by 2050, the country has begun to move toward effectively slashing carbon dioxide emissions to zero within the next three decades.

Japan will now expand the previous policy goal of an 80% cut by 2050. But, as one researcher familiar with scenarios for fighting climate change said, "Zero emissions are not an extension of an 80% reduction." 

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