Tokyo, Jan. 17 (Jiji Press)–Japan will establish an international research center to develop technologies that drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, the industry ministry said Friday.

The center will be headed by Akira Yoshino, a winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and honorary fellow of Japanese chemical maker Asahi Kasei Corp. <3407>.

The organization will be a unit of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, or AIST. It will cooperate with public research institutions in Europe, the United States and Australia to develop high-performance solar power generators, storage batteries and biofuels.

Its headquarters will be located in Tokyo, while its core research facility will be at AIST’s research base in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, near Tokyo.

The center will also have bases in AIST facilities in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, just north of Ibaraki, and in Ikeda in the western prefecture of Osaka.

Some 300 to 400 researchers will eventually work at the center.

The government plans to announce its Progressive Environment Innovation Strategy soon, in line with its long-term goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 pct by 2050. The center will act as the key driver for the implementation of the strategy.

“Environmental problems are a major issue common to all humanity. We’ll work hard to resolve them,” Yoshino told reporters after meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.