Japan’s path towards carbon neutrality and carbon pricing with Professor Toshi H Arimura
Is Japan on track to achieving net-zero emissions? How does Japanese climate policy stack up against the rest of the world? What makes the Japanese decarbonisation context unique?
For our first seminar in the Perspectives on Energy Transition series for 2025, we were joined by Professor of Political Science and Economics, Toshi H. Arimura. Toshi explored Japan’s pathway to decarbonisation and the influence of mechanisms like carbon pricing and international carbon borders, as well as Australia’s relationship with Japan, and how we can accelerate efforts towards net zero together.
ABOUT TOSHI
Toshi H. Arimura is a Professor of Environmental Economics and a Director of the Research Institute for Environment Economics and Management at Waseda University. He has been a visiting scholar to Paris School of Economics and Sciences Po. He was a Professor at Sophia University and was a visiting scholar with George Mason University and Resources for the Future as a recipient of the Abe Fellowship. His major research area is climate change. He is a coeditor of Carbon Pricing in Japan (Springer) which received the commentary award from Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies (SEEPS) in 2021. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota. He has served on many Japanese government committees on environmental issues. He is the recipient of Outstanding Publication Award from SEEPS and served as the president of SEEPS.
1 Comment
Your government's electrification strategies sound great, but I am worried about your hydrogen and ammonia initiatives. Any leaked hydrogen is a powerful oxidiser of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. So to have any meaningful benefit using hydrogen, you must limit all leakage to less than 1%. Most trial projects show leakages of around 5-10% so although they decarbonise, they have a net warming. Due to hydrogen causing embrittlement in pipes it is very expensive to contain.
Ammonia on ships fails the first principle of safety in design. Ammonia is an extremely toxic and corrosive gas deadly to humans and marine life. Methanol is a much safer alternative for shipping.
Also, using hydrogen replacement is a long term goal once all easy energy transition goals have been achieved and there is an abundance of surplus renewable energy. Otherwise, green hydrogen becomes an exergy destroyer and you would be far better off focusing all your efforts on electrification at least for the next few decades.
CCS is an insane idea really designed to extend the use of fossil fuels. It is always more expensive than projects designed to reduce emissions in the first place. If you share these projects as decarbonisation initiatives you must show how they will be cheaper than electrification strategies.