For David Fickling's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
A business based on mining, hauling and burning heavy rocks to spit out electrons struggles to survive everywhere that fuel-free renewables manage to take root.
About a third of all human greenhouse emissions in history have happened since 1997, when world leaders adopted the Kyoto Protocol with an ambition of limiting such pollution.
The more people infected in emerging countries, the more opportunities COVID-19 will have to develop into fresh strains and prolong this death and misery.
Concerns about China’s control over rare earths are probably overblown given how abundant they are.
While we’re increasingly talking about the coronavirus in the past tense, the worst may still be ahead of us. Infections worldwide rose 47% during March from a lull in late February.
Despite its world-beating exports of coal and liquefied natural gas, Australia is seriously short of oil.
Climate and energy plans presented in China’s 14th Five Year Plan this month represent the most important policies in determining the fate of the planet.
There was a time when China could cause the world to tremble by threatening its supply of rare earths. It’s long in the past.
One factor rules out most space mining at the outset: gravity. It guarantees that most of the solar system’s best mineral resources are to be found under our feet on Earth.
Beyond Meat Inc., the U.S. maker of plant-based burgers and sausages, announced a new product designed to crack China, the world’s biggest meat market: imitation ground pork.
