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Former President Donald Trump with Elon Musk during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Oct. 5. The Tesla billionaire is a key figure in the president-elect's orbit. One question is whether his views on climate and clean energy will have any sway.
WORLD
Nov 9, 2024

Musk believes in global warming. Trump doesn’t. Will that change?

The Tesla billionaire is a key figure in the president-elect's orbit. One question is whether his views on climate and clean energy will have any sway.
Pedestrians walk in front of the venue for COP29 Summit in Baku on the eve of UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) on Sunday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 11, 2024

Who are the key voices at the COP29 climate summit in Baku?

The U.S., the world's second largest emitter comes to COP29 following an election that will put Donald Trump back in power in 2025.
People farm in the Punakha valley, Bhutan, in 2017.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 11, 2024

Buddhist Bhutan to build 'mindfulness city' to create jobs and woo investment

The Gelephu Mindfulness City will lie in a special administrative region with separate rules and laws.
People walk past the logotype at the venue for the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 11, 2024

A guide to COP29 climate vocabulary

Here's a guide to some of the terms in play at this year's COP29 discussions.
Solar panels installed along the coastline of Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture. Due to the relative ease of starting solar power generation, mega solar power plants have been installed rapidly across the country.
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2024

Japan to mandate solar panel recycling when lifespan ends

The number of panels reaching the end of their lifespans is projected to start rising sharply in the mid-2030s.
People leave the venue during the United Nations climate change conference, known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 12, 2024

COP29: U.S. climate envoy says work will continue despite Trump's return

"For those of us dedicated to climate action, last week's outcome in the United States is obviously bitterly disappointing," Podesta said at the summit.
This year is expected to be the hottest year on record, and the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service predicts it will also be the first year ever to breach 1.5 C of warming.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 12, 2024

Global warming is already on the cusp of 1.5 C, new research finds

While there is nothing symbolic about the number 1.5 in particular, every extra increment of heat risks worsening climate impacts like powerful storms and drought.
In 2017, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government became the first among Japan's local authorities to issue green bonds.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Nov 12, 2024

More municipalities tap green bonds as demand makes rates favorable

Green bond issuance by local government authorities in Japan has risen from ¥149.3 billion in 2022 to ¥443.1 billion in 2023.
A drone view shows a tree on fire in Humaita, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Sept. 8.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 19, 2024

Can a COP29 deal clean up scandal-ridden carbon offsets?

Carbon trading is seen as one way for richer countries to meet their emissions reduction targets.
Leaders attending the launch of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty pose for a group photo after the first session of the G20 Leaders' Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 20, 2024

Brazil urges G20 leaders to move faster on net zero climate targets

Brazil's leader noted this is likely the world's warmest year on record as climate disasters such as flooding and droughts become more frequent and intense.
A research team that includes government-backed research institute Riken and the University of Tokyo has developed a plastic material that can be dissolved in seawater in just a few hours.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2024

Riken and others develop plastic material that dissolves in seawater

Unlike earlier biodegradable plastics, the material is strong and easy to process and takes only hours to decompose.
Attendees walk past the COP29 logo during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Friday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 25, 2024

Climate finance's 'new era' shows new political realities

All sides acknowledge rich countries' promise of $300 billion a year in climate finance is not enough.
A resident of Kibichuo in Okayama Prefecture takes a blood test in the town on Monday.
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2024

PFAS blood tests start in Okayama Prefecture town

About 800 residents are expected to take a blood test under the program, which runs through Dec. 8.
The national flag of Saudi Arabia at their pavilion at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 14
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 26, 2024

How Saudi Arabia turned back climate progress at COP29

After three decades of being the main opposition at the annual climate talks, the Saudis have developed a sophisticated playbook.
Plastic waste that manicurist Naomi Arimoto collected from the sand at a beach, is pictured at her nail salon in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Oct. 21.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2024

Japanese manicurist takes on plastic pollution, one nail at a time

Naomi Arimoto carefully sifts beach sand for tiny bits of plastic that she can mold into decorative tips to put on the false nails at her salon.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announces measures to counter the spread of "forever chemicals" in drinking water in the Upper House of parliament in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 3, 2024

Japan eyes new PFAS regulations for drinking water by spring

Water suppliers nationwide must upgrade their safety standards to counter the spread of "forever chemicals."
No new turbines have been ordered in Sweden since the first quarter, according to the latest data from industry group Svensk Vindenergi, the longest such stretch in two years.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Dec 7, 2024

Free green power in Sweden is crippling its wind industry

The country has one of the greenest grids in the world. But even more is needed to electrify the rest of its economy.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks in Pyongyang on Nov. 21. North Korea is believed to have been engaging in nuclear development since the era of the late Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and the current leader's grandfather.
WORLD
Dec 11, 2024

Unstable global environment reduces NPT to mere shell

Some countries are moving to acquire nuclear weapons in an attempt to either maintain their dictatorial regimes or to strengthen deterrence.
Gold samples confiscated by Federal Police in Amazonas state, Brazil, on June 19
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 16, 2024

New technology aids Brazil's crackdown on illicit Amazon gold trade

A police program is creating a database of samples from across Brazil that are examined to determine the unique composition of elements.
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Dec 20, 2024

Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns

The inspection follows a reported leak in August of water containing "forever chemicals" outside the U.S. base in western Tokyo.
Solar panels, which typically last 20 to 30 years, will begin to reach the end of their service life in the next decade.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2025

Disposal of used solar panels emerging as challenge in Japan

The annual amount of solar panels discarded as waste is seen peaking at some 500,000 tons in the early 2040s, putting a major strain on industrial waste treatment facilities.
A maintenance worker inspects solar panels at a power plant in southern India.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 6, 2025

Where the smart climate tech venture money is going in 2025

The prospect of more trade wars is scrambling the economy in ways that will determine which climate tech sectors to bet on.
A beach house is engulfed by the flames of the Palisades fire as seen along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, on Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 9, 2025

Extreme weather and suburban sprawl fuel LA's wildfires

A prolonged dry spell and strong winds played key roles, though experts say it's too soon to say how much climate change contributed.
The sun sets over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, near Furnace Creek, during a heat wave impacting Southern California in July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 10, 2025

Record heat pushed 2024 above global warming threshold of 1.5 C

A clear acceleration in rising temperatures has puzzled scientists, even as the evidence of the fast-warming atmosphere became impossible to miss.
Climate scientists say that global warming is making extreme weather events more frequent and intense.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 13, 2025

2024 hottest recorded year, crossed global warming limit

Excess heat is supercharging extreme weather, and 2024 saw countries all over the world suffer disasters that cost more than $300 billion.
Wawira Njiru, the founder of Food4Education, serves food during the opening of a new kitchen in Mombasa County, Kenya, in 2022. The organization started in 2012 by feeding 25 children out of a single kitchen. Now it feeds nearly half a million every day.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jan 19, 2025

Amid rising world hunger, a Japan-inspired group in Kenya is making a big impact

Food4Education is helping feed half a million students through a program that drew inspiration from Japan's renowned school lunch programs.
Asia is home to several sustainable investment taxonomies. Among them, the Singapore-Asia taxonomy is a regional framework for classifying sustainable investments across eight sectors that represent 90% of the continent's greenhouse gas emissions.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2025

Sustainable finance taxonomies light up Asia’s net-zero path

With its burgeoning economies and population, Asia is key to decarbonizing the planet. The continent's sustainable taxonomies are helping direct finance toward climate solutions.
An oil pump jack. Big U.S. oil companies believe withdrawing from the Paris Agreement only limits Washington's ability to influence an ongoing global energy transition and exposes them to an uneven regulatory environment.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 23, 2025

Trump's climate withdrawal creates rare discord with Big Oil

A shift in the U.S. power industry away from coal has contributed to a roughly 17% decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions since 2007.
On Hiroshima Prefecture's Okunoshima island where more than 1,000 rabbits roam freely, 77 carcasses of the animal have been discovered since late November.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 23, 2025

On Japan's 'rabbit island,' bunnies are mysteriously dying one by one

Police have arrested a man for kicking a rabbit, which later died, as a probe continues over the deaths of more than 70 bunnies on Okunoshima island in Hiroshima Prefecture.
Vehicles drive over a road made using recycled plastic waste in Pokhara, Nepal, on Dec. 26.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jan 27, 2025

Rubbish roads: Nepal explores paving with plastic

Studies show that roads paved with plastic waste can be twice as durable as normal roads.

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A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami