Search - 2020

 
 
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2010

Airport wars roil Kansai region

OSAKA — Two years into his term, Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto continues to enjoy high popularity among voters, with some local media polls showing his approval rating at almost 70 percent, due largely to his personality and cost-cutting steps.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 27, 2009

COP15 farce: There's always more time, till there isn't

Post-conference analysis of the Copenhagen COP15 has ranged from despair and disgust to guarded optimism that 2010 will bring a new and better agreement.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2009

Gridlock threatens to doom COP15

COPENHAGEN — U.N. negotiators at the COP15 conference worked through the night Tuesday, increasingly desperate to reach agreement before more than 120 world leaders gather Thursday night and Friday and following an official warning that the stalemated negotiations could doom the conference.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2009

Japan under fire for laying low in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN — Japan needs to step up and take a more prominent and visible leadership role at the U.N. climate talks or the conference could end in failure, Japanese and foreign nongovernmental organizations said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Dec 11, 2009

'Clean energy' plan may jump start NGK's sales

Japan's plan to use more renewable energy to fight climate change hinges on another technology — batteries as big as London buses to be hooked up to the power network at a cost of as much as ¥6 trillion.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2009

Leaked Danish draft at COP15 angers G77 bloc

COPENHAGEN — A leaked draft prepared by Denmark but reportedly compiled with assistance from the U.S. and the U.K. threatened to disrupt proceedings at the U.N. climate change conference, infuriating developing countries who feared the proposal would force them to shoulder more of the burden for reducing...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2009

Tempers flare at climate talks

COPENHAGEN — Tempers rose during the U.N. climate conference Tuesday, with key players criticizing each other's plans to combat global warming and a leaked draft from host nation Denmark creating havoc in the negotiating sessions.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2009

Japan says China cuts must be binding

COPENHAGEN — Japan's pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions continues to hinge on whether China and other major developing economies make legally binding reduction commitments, and Beijing's current negotiating stance does not meet that condition, according to Japanese delegates at the U.N. Climate...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2009

Climate talks open amid growing hope

COPENHAGEN, After two years of preparation and anticipation, the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP15, opened Monday amid growing hope an agreement between developed and developing countries on specific greenhouse gas targets is within reach.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
Dec 1, 2009

Electric vehicle market charges up

FOURTH IN A SERIES Keio University engineering professor Hiroshi Shimizu believes the era of the electric vehicle is near.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2009

Fukuyama optimistic emissions deal within reach

KYOTO — Last week's announcement by President Barack Obama that the United States would pursue a 17 percent cut in greenhouse gases compared to 2005, followed by China's announcement of its own emissions reductions target, are positive signs that an agreement will be reached at next month's Copenhagen...
COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2009

Wrong way to halt warming

Here's a surprise. The countries with the best stories to tell at the forthcoming U.N. Copenhagen conference on climate change will probably be the ones that have not signed up to carbon-reducing targets at all, or have only signed up very recently. It could be China, the United States, India and Japan...
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2009

Turbulent climate talks

Clouds are hanging over current negotiations leading up to the 15th, 192-nation U.N. Climate Change Conference scheduled to be held in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18 for the purpose of adopting a global framework for curbing greenhouse gas emissions from 2013. The Kyoto Protocol now in effect will expire in 2012....
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2009

Rhetorical Hatoyama opens Diet

Calling his mission the "bloodless Heisei restoration," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama kicked off a 36-day extraordinary Diet session Monday pledging to revamp postwar politics and establish a society based on his notion of fraternity.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 25, 2009

Of simmering frogs and economists leaping to terminal conclusions

They say that if a frog is dropped into boiling water it will jump out, but if it is placed in water that is then heated slowly it will steadily acclimate and boil to death — having missed its chance to escape.
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2009

Unexpected Olympic pitch

The mayors of the atomic-bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have announced their desire to invite the 2020 Summer Olympics to their cities and have called on the central government and the Japan Olympic Committee for support. Mayors Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima and Tomihisa Taue of Nagasaki put...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2009

India shifts stand on carbon emission cuts after China announces a national program

LONDON — With a new U.N. climate treaty to be considered in Copenhagen in December, the developed world and the emerging economies are trying to bridge their differences on how to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. The United States wants developing countries like India and China...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2009

After fast start, it's crunch time for Cabinet

The Democratic Party of Japan-led Cabinet heads into its second month Friday, after coming out quickly to usher in a new political era in the wake of the Liberal Democratic Party's long domination.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 14, 2009

New concerns bring fresh hope for renewable energy

VIENNA — A decade ago, renewable energy was viewed as an unwelcome offspring of fossil fuels, but the recent establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) indicates that governments worldwide are taking "renewables" seriously. With mounting concerns about climate change and volatility...
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2009

70% of Japanese back Hatoyama's CO 2 pledge: survey

OSAKA — Seventy percent of Japanese people support a midterm greenhouse gas reduction target of between 25 percent and 40 percent for developed countries, a survey on global warming conducted by a Danish government-backed organization says.
EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 2009

Impetus for a low-carbon world

Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, head of the Democratic Party of Japan and the prime minister-in-waiting, has announced that Japan will seek a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. This is an ambitious target that could put Japan on the path to a low-carbon society. It could also give...
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2009

Target CO2 cut draws business ire

OSAKA — Yukio Hatoyama's reaffirmation Monday that his incoming government will stick to the Democratic Party of Japan's campaign pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels has drawn fire from local businesses but also praise from the international community.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person