Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike referred to as on startups, SMEs and native governments in Japan, Europe and Kazakhstan to cooperate and share finest practices on inexperienced hydrogen expertise in an interview with Euronews throughout an official go to to Astana.
Mr. Koike emphasised, “We hope that sharing information in boards like this may additional promote innovation and speed up the introduction of hydrogen in numerous areas.”
“Tokyo is pursuing a variety of initiatives with the objective of halving emissions by 2030 and attaining zero emissions by 2050,” he continued.
Inexperienced hydrogen is produced utilizing renewable power, usually wind or solar energy, to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen by a course of referred to as electrolysis.
As a result of it doesn’t use fossil fuels, it doesn’t emit carbon dioxide, in contrast to “grey” hydrogen constituted of pure fuel, which makes up the vast majority of hydrogen produced at the moment.
Key challenges for climate-smart cities
Producing inexperienced hydrogen at scale stays costly and nonetheless requires important funding in infrastructure reminiscent of pipelines, storage and transport terminals.
It’s exactly this problem that Koike cites for example of cross-border cooperation and pooling of data and capital.
“Primarily based on these insights, Tokyo will additional intensify its efforts in direction of the sensible improvement of hydrogen,” she continued.
She additionally mentioned how the power transition is posing challenges to main cities and what function they’ll play in accelerating inexperienced transformation.
In a gathering with the mayors of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Mr. Koike exchanged views on integrating inexperienced hydrogen into city infrastructure, supporting start-ups on this subject, constructing resilience in cities, and selling built-in port administration and hydrogen utilization.
Koike stated, “We confirmed the significance of main cities working collectively to handle frequent points.”
Inexperienced hydrogen continues to be an rising and costly expertise that requires important state help together with personal funding to scale up.
Governments within the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Gulf States, specifically, are key promoters, pouring cash into nationwide hydrogen methods, subsidies and infrastructure improvement by pipelines, storage and transport terminals.
Begin-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises play an vital supporting function, particularly in advancing electrolyzer effectivity, gasoline cell design, and area of interest purposes reminiscent of city transportation and native power storage.
Strengthening relations with Kazakhstan
In Astana, Mr. Koike met with Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev and mentioned future cooperation between Kazakhstan and Japan. President Tokayev famous that the tenth anniversary of the strengthening of the strategic partnership between the 2 nations is approaching.
“Right here in Kazakhstan, we all know you to be a long-time buddy, companion and devoted politician who has made an excellent contribution to relations between Kazakhstan and Japan. For greater than 25 years, your dedication to Kazakh historical past and tradition has performed a novel function in bringing our individuals nearer collectively,” Tokayev stated.
In an interview with Euronews, Koike identified that Tokyo and Astana signed a memorandum of understanding on digital improvement and concrete resilience in December 2025, which was the premise for a number of discussions through the go to.
“President Tokayev and I’ve a long-standing relationship in selling exchanges and cooperation between our two nations and cities,” she stated, including that power safety amid continued tensions within the Center East was additionally one of many points mentioned.
Koike spoke to Euronews about Tokyo’s inexperienced transformation startups and SMEs, and “their world enlargement and future enterprise partnership alternatives.”
Subsequent, she additionally visited AlemAI, Kazakhstan’s premier synthetic intelligence middle situated inside the EXPO ecosystem in Astana.
Designed as a large 20,000 sq. meter expertise and schooling hub, it can combine scientific analysis, startups and good governance to speed up the nation’s digital transformation.
At Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Koike discovered about sturgeon farming and caviar manufacturing efforts and famous similarities with tasks underway on Kozushima, Tokyo.
“Our discussions strengthened the premise for potential future cooperation,” she concluded.
