Search - environment

 
 
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 11, 2023

Turning a snowless ski resort into a national park is complicated

A dispute in Spain has become an example of the tensions that arise when efforts to restore nature clash with economic interests and even long-standing traditions.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 10, 2023

Restoration of the ozone layer is back on track, scientists say

In a report for the United Nations, scientists said Monday that China had largely eliminated rogue emissions of an ozone destroying chemical known as CFC-11.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 9, 2023

How researchers in disaster-prone Japan and the Pacific are rethinking city design

In the years following the 2011 megaquake and tsunami, seawalls have proliferated along northeastern Japan's Pacific coast. Some researchers are pushing for an alternative approach.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 23, 2022

Stories centered on climate change slowly make inroads in massive gaming industry

Activists and governments are hoping they can encourage behavioral change among gamers through green nudges, where points are awarded for protecting the environment in consumer games
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2022

Java without java? The crisis brewing in coffee

The Indonesian island is a byword for caffeine. The woes piling up for the coffee industry are on full display.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 23, 2022

Anchovies and sardines are a climate solution in a can

Tinned fish are among the lowest-carbon animal protein available, with potential to curb the world's enormous emissions from food.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 20, 2022

Nearly every country signs on to a sweeping deal to protect nature

The agreement comes as biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates never seen before in human history.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 6, 2022

U.N. says new biodiversity credits can succeed where carbon offsets failed

Studies on biodiversity offsetting programs in Canada, Australia and at a global level have found very few achieve their targets and most are unsuccessful.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Nov 30, 2022

Restoring nature could depend on how countries help farmers

Around the world, government subsidies that harm nature amount to at least $1.8 trillion each year — equivalent to 2% of global GDP.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 23, 2022

Beijing is fixing its foul air. Why can’t New Delhi?

The return of smog season in India's capital has again left residents asking why nothing has changed. The answer may be largely political.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 5, 2022

'Negotiating our future': Youth set to grab power roles at COP27

Young people have long been at the forefront of green protests and activism outside the corridors of power. Now many are striding into those corridors.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2022

The White House’s adventures in wonderland

Today's fraught geopolitical environment requires more transparency and less spin about the hard choices that governments face.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 3, 2022

The Nile is in mortal danger, from its source to the sea

Climate change, pollution and exploitation are putting existential pressure on the world's second longest river, on which half a billion people depend for survival.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / Longform
Oct 24, 2022

Battle to stop Kagoshima seawall highlights divide over coastal engineering

Seawalls are a fixture of Japanese coasts, but one beach on the island of Amami Oshima is fighting against the tide.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2022

The high stakes of climate-risk accounting

Businesses and investors stand to make a lot of money if they properly navigate the new climate risk environment — yet we remain where we are.
Japan, which relied on coal and natural gas for more than 60% of electricity generation last year, has been slow to shift to lower-emission energy sources.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2024

Japan aims for 60% emissions cut by 2035 in target seen as lax

The target was proposed last month, and was criticized by experts who said the plans don’t align with international ambitions to curb global warming.
Susumu Hyodo, director of the University of Tokyo's Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (right), and others announce a project to analyze seawater temperatures during an event in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 21, 2025

Japan to study sea changes using fishers' data

Japanese catches of major fish species such as salmon and saury have been slumping since around 2010, according to a national fishing industry group.
The Chip Mong Insee cement factory in Kampot province, Cambodia, on Jan. 9. An investigation has shown that the plastic credits sector relies heavily on the polluting cement industry to burn collected waste, despite concerns about health risks and carbon emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 20, 2025

'What would you have us do?': The plastic credits problem

Credits place no obligations on buyers to stop producing or using unrecyclable plastic that ends up in the environment.
Secondhand clothing store "Onward Reuse Park Kichijoji" in December in the city of Musashino in Tokyo
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2025

Eyeing waste, Japanese apparel industry pushes sustainable fashion

About 60% of the clothes sold in Japan are thrown away, according to the Environment Ministry.
Ocean plastic pollution is a systemic crisis that cannot be solved by a few sustainability-minded citizens recycling but requires an economy-wide solution.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 19, 2025

The true cost of ocean plastic pollution

The problem of maritime plastic-waste pollution first became apparent in the 1970s. In the half-century since then, the problem has become ever more widespread, as scientific expeditions conducted by the Tara Ocean Foundation (of which I am executive director) have shown.
The Environment Ministry is offering ¥60 billion ($415 million) of support for the commercialization of homegrown climate and environmental technology through the Japan Green Investment Corp. for Carbon Neutrality, a government-backed fund that invests in ventures to reduce emissions.
JAPAN
May 29, 2025

Japan bets on homegrown startups to adapt to a hotter world

The Environment Ministry is offering ¥60 billion of support through the Japan Green Investment Corp. for Carbon Neutrality.
Workers add clean topsoil to a rice field, part of a government pilot project to add fresh earth to recycled and removed soil taken from areas affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster, in the village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, in April.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 1, 2025

Recycling contaminated soil from Fukushima: Japan's dilemma

Massive amounts of the soil — around 14 million cubic meters of it — remain in storage near the damaged plant.
Takuzo Aida, group director at the Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science, shows a sample of ocean-degradable plastic at its lab in Wako, Saitama Prefecture.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 5, 2025

Scientists in Japan develop plastic that quickly dissolves in seawater

The new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt.
President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Yuji Iwasawa (center) and other members issue an advisory opinion on nations' legal obligations to address climate change, at The Hague on Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 24, 2025

Top U.N. court says treaties compel wealthy nations to curb global warming

The International Court of Justice said countries must address the "urgent and existential threat" of climate change.
Women use parasols to shelter from the sun on a hot summer day in Berlin on July 2
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 27, 2025

Germans are finally embracing air conditioning, even renters

Most homes in Germany — and in northwest Europe — don’t have AC and haven’t really needed it until heat waves became more frequent in recent years.
Some 460 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is single-use.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 2, 2025

Efforts set to resume to reach plastic pollution pact

The coming talks follow a failure to reach a deal last December on how to stop millions of tons of plastic waste from entering the environment each year.
A fish washes up on Glenelg Beach on July 13 in Adelaide, Australia. A toxic algal bloom has washed up dead and dying sea creatures along the South Australian coastline since mid March and was first detected on the state’s Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Aug 6, 2025

Toxic algae bloom off South Australia devastates marine life and tourism

The algal bloom, first detected in March, spans an area 4,500 square kilometers and has been aggravated by rising ocean temperatures.
People huddle near a large fan blowing icy-cold mist at the Osaka Expo on July 12. Amid Japan's relentless summer heat, organizes have put myriad measures in place in order to keep guests safe.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Aug 10, 2025

Osaka Expo highlights the challenge of holding events in Japan's scorching summer

Giant umbrellas, mist fans and human-sized ice boxes are some of the many ways organizers are offering respite to visitors.
Delegates rest outside of the assembly hall in Geneva on Friday after talks aimed at striking a landmark treaty on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution ended without a deal.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 15, 2025

'Bad actors' blamed as plastic pollution treaty talks end again without deal

Countries said they wanted further negotiations despite six rounds of talks over three years having failed to find agreement.
John Hume, the South African who bred the world’s biggest rhino herd, has for years campaigned unsuccessfully for the legalization of international trade in the animals’ horns.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Aug 20, 2025

Man who bred world’s biggest rhino herd charged with horn smuggling

John Hume, 83, has for years campaigned unsuccessfully for the legalization of international trade in the animals’ horns.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight