TOKYO: Japanese engineering giant Toshiba will not build any more coal-fired power plants and will shift to renewable energy in a bid to reduce greenhouse emissions, the company’s president said Wednesday.

But none of its existing coal-power construction projects will be scrapped, said the firm, which has around 10 underway worldwide.

“We will stop accepting new orders to build coal-fired plants, and seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030,” Toshiba’s president Nobuaki Kurumatani told reporters.

The company will increase investment in renewable energy, he said — including infrastructure for offshore wind-power and solar-power facilities, and research and development in related fields.

The announcement comes just weeks after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga set a 2050 deadline for the world’s third-largest economy to become carbon-neutral.—AFP