Arab News Japan

DUBAI: Takeshi Hashimoto, President, CEO, and Executive Officer at the Japanese transportation company Mitsui Osk, said during the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that international communities should work together to achieve net zero.

Speaking in a session titled “First Movers for Frontier Clean Technologies” alongside various CEOs, Hashimoto said that the shipping industry deals with many types of transportation, such as gas carriers and tanks, and each type has its own requirement to produce as little carbon as possible. 

“We need to establish a combination of different kinds of procedures to reduce our emissions for the time being and, in the long term, achieve net zero,” Hashimoto said.

Hashimoto affirmed that the issue of carbon emissions is an important one for Mitsui Osk and called for government and international entities to cooperate to reduce carbon emissions. 

“We already started working on (achieving net zero) and it became clear that we can’t do it alone. We need to set up a strong team to do it together,” Hashimoto said. “We are trying to work with many industry pioneers. It’s an important issue for us, the government, and international entities (as) we need to establish technical and commercial achievement and a political framework.” 

Alongside Hashimoto, Singapore’s Minister of Manpower Tan See Leng also called for working government entities as well as “like-minded individuals.” to achieve the goal. He added that Singapore is working closely with Japan, as well as the United States, to develop and implement aviation green lanes throughout the Asia Pacific. 

“This would provide a pathway for accelerated emissions reductions through fostering value chain collaboration, ensuring credibility, and also providing predictability and transparency to consumers,” Leng said. 

American politician John Forbes Kerry praised the CEOs’ efforts to achieve net zero, adding that COP28, which took place in Dubai last year, was the first step in doing so. “I believe we had a historic COP in Dubai,” Kerry said. “I believe that the fact we got 195 nations to sign of on a language we will transition away from fossil fuels in historic.”