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An aerial photo taken on March 20, 2025, shows part of the original site of Lang Nu village in Vietnam's Lao Cai province, after it was wiped away in a landslide triggered by Typhoon Yagi's devastating heavy rains last year.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 23, 2025

Vietnam village starts over with climate defenses after landslide

She and dozens of survivors have been relocated to a site that authorities hope will withstand future climate change-linked disasters.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 29, 2025

Trump administration targets scientists behind key climate assessment

Dismissal of nearly 400 contributors leaves the future of the U.S. National Climate Assessment in doubt under Trump's administration.
Firefighters want more funding and better incentives for the millions of volunteers who prop up the system.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 3, 2025

'Not sustainable': Europe's firefighters want more funds and staff

Wildfires fueled by hotter, drier weather and household fires are straining fire services across the bloc.
The United Nations General Assembly Building in New York in 2015. An internal U.N. document shows the U.S. is opposing draft reforms of the world's financial system intended to help developing countries.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2025

U.N. document shows U.S. seeks to weaken global development finance efforts

It opposes draft reforms of the world's financial system intended to help developing countries, including around taxation, credit ratings and fossil fuel subsidies.
The Trump administration has launched a full-scale federal "plastic patriotism" effort to eliminate paper straws, arguing they are ineffective, hazardous, more expensive and become soggy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2025

A world restored: The U.S. takes the offensive against paper straws

The Trump team has issued an executive order and a national strategy to rid the country of the pulpy, soggy mess of paper straws that torments too many of America's citizens.
The consumption and investing habits of the world's richest 10% consume and invest has substantially increased the risk of deadly heat waves and drought around the world, according to new research.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 8, 2025

World's richest 10% caused two-thirds of global warming, study finds

How the rich consume and invest has substantially increased the risk of deadly heat waves and drought.
India's air conditioner market is set to grow from the current 14 million units to 30 million units in terms of volume by 2030, driven by hotter summers and rising disposable incomes.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 13, 2025

Indians buy 14 million air conditioners a year, and need many more

A record 14 million AC units were sold in India last year, with a ninefold increase in residential ownership forecast by midcentury.
SeaForest CEO Sam Elsom at the company's headquarters in Triabunna, Tasmania, on March 26
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 15, 2025

Australian seaweed farm tackles livestock burps to combat climate change

While far less abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, methane is about 80 times more potent over a 20-year timescale at warming the planet.
The rush to electrify everything is reshaping energy, but without addressing demand, grid and supply risks, the green transition may falter.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2025

It’s electricity realism, not climate denialism

Electrifying everything comes with plenty of risks of its own.
French scientist Marie-Anne Blanchet examines bear cubs before taking tissue biopsies and blood samples from their sedated mother, in eastern Spitzbergen, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, on April 6.
ENVIRONMENT
May 19, 2025

Polar bear biopsies shed light on Arctic pollutants

The team's findings may help explain how the bears' world is changing, and at an alarming rate.
A partially submerged car is seen in the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis, in Nagano Prefecture in October 2019. The Weather Attribution Center Japan, which was founded Tuesday, aims to publicize the results of its climate attribution assessment within days of a typhoon, torrential rain or extreme heat.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
May 21, 2025

When extreme weather hits, Japan scientists will have faster answers on climate links

The Weather Attribution Center will aim to publish concrete links between global warming and extreme weather events within days, rather than months.
Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / Longform
May 26, 2025

Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?

Trees have long occupied a sacred place in Japanese culture. In the fast pace of the 21st century, however, they're increasingly losing out to progress.
A marine heat wave has led to boom in the octopus population.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Jun 3, 2025

Octopus invasion in English Channel flags marine heat wave risks

Warming waters have suited the octopus but when one part of the natural ecosystem changes, there can be knock on effects.
A dead sea star in 2015. About 5 billion sea stars died from a disease outbreak, likely including this one.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 18, 2025

Marine heat waves are spreading around the world

Some unusual ocean events have become so intense that scientists have coined a new term: super marine heat waves.
A firefighter works during the Eaton Fire in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 8.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2025

Warning signs on climate flashing bright red: top scientists

Greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high in 2024 and averaged a record 53.6 billion metric tons per year of CO2, they reported in a peer-reviewed update.
Tsutomu Uchida has experimented with various cultivation techniques since he started growing avocados in Shizuoka Prefecture in October 2020.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Jun 22, 2025

As Japan warms, avocados emerge as an unlikely savior for farmers

In traditional mikan strongholds like Shizuoka, farmers are growing increasingly concerned about future production and seeing opportunities with avocados.
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 29, 2025

With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining

Want to be an advocate of Japan’s marine health? Look out for sustainably farmed fish the next time you dine at a restaurant.
A street in Suttsu, Hokkaido, with a sign put up by an anti-nuclear organization. The small community is considering hosting a facility that would hold nuclear waste.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Jul 6, 2025

Ainu land rights in crosshairs as Hokkaido communities debate nuclear waste

Some scholars and activists are raising concerns that Indigenous voices are not being heard amid the debate over whether to host nuclear waste storage facilities.
Items made using plastic recycled from CDs and DVDs, such as storage baskets, smartphone stands and business card holders, are sold at some Bookoff outlets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 8, 2025

Bookoff plans to step up recycling of unsold CDs and DVDs

The secondhand goods retailer disposes of 1,700 tons of discs and cases from some 800 outlets across the country each year.
Following a string of bear attacks that led to human injuries, the Environment Ministry has announced guidelines that list conditions and procedures for allowing the shooting of bears and other wild animals in urban areas.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 8, 2025

Japan releases guidelines on shooting of bears in urban areas

The move follows a string of bear attacks that led to human injuries.
Two specimens of the Japanese beetle have been detected for the first time in France.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Jul 9, 2025

France worries about Japanese beetles after finding two

The insects threaten plum trees, apple trees, vines, corn, soy, green beans and asparagus, among other cultivated plants.
Jung Yong-sun, a local official tasked with pest-control duties, poses while wearing a plastic netted onion bag for protection from "lovebugs" on the peak of Gyeyangsan Mountain in Incheon, west of Seoul.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 9, 2025

South Korea battles 'lovebug' invasion amid climate change

Seoul is now annually hit by a weeks-long infestation of a type of March fly whose distinctive mating behavior earned it the nickname.
A public school teacher leads the class during the first day of in-person classes, at a school flooded due to high tide, in Macabebe, Pampanga province, Philippines, in August 2022.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 10, 2025

Philippines struggling to ready underfunded schools for climate hazards

Teachers want the government to do more than tweak the school calendar, and also invest in infrastructure that will make schools resilient to heat and storms.
Alberto, a local farmer, sprays an apple orchard with pesticides in the village of Agia, in the Thessaly region, Greece, on June 12.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 15, 2025

Europe's illegal pesticide trade surges as farmers cut costs

At least 14% of pesticides used on European Union fields today are illegal, up from around 10% in 2015.
A drone view shows turf from Derryrush bog left out to dry after being harvested from the blanket bog in Derryrush, Ireland, in April 2024. Ireland's bogs were formed over thousands of years as decaying plants formed a thick layer of peat in wetland areas.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 16, 2025

World risks up to $39 trillion in losses from vanishing wetlands: report

Some 22% of wetlands, both freshwater systems and coastal marine systems, have disappeared since 1970, the report says.
Activists from Greenpeace protest deep-sea mining with an inflatable octopus and a banner that says "'Protect the deep sea" in Berlin earlier this month.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science
Jul 20, 2025

Restoring sea floor after mining may not be possible, researchers warn

One of the last wild zones on the planet, the sea floor is a coveted frontier for companies and countries eager to access high-demand minerals found there.
A man sits in a boat on the waters of the Brahmaputra river near the international border between India and Bangladesh in the northeastern state of Assam, India, in 2018.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 21, 2025

China starts construction on world's largest hydropower dam in Tibet

The project is part of China's push to expand renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri (right) and Lando Norris drive during the Formula One British Grand Prix at Silverstone, England, on July 6.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Jul 25, 2025

Formula 1's renewable energy shift drives 26% drop in carbon footprint

F1 said in a statement on Wednesday that it’s halfway toward achieving its minimum 50% reduction target, as set out in its "net zero by 2030” commitment. 
Sheep on the eastern shores of Lake Hawea, near the town of Wanaka on the South Island of New Zealand. New Zealand sheep farmers are fighting to stop the loss of pasture to fast-spreading pine plantations, which earn government subsidies to soak up carbon emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 28, 2025

New Zealand farmers battle pine forests to 'save our sheep'

New Zealand is one of the rare countries to allow 100% of carbon emissions to be offset by forestry.
Peruvian police seized four tons of illegal mercury from Mexico bound for Bolivia, dealing a severe blow to criminal organizations linked to illegal gold mining, customs authorities reported on Thursday.
WORLD
Jul 28, 2025

Smuggled mercury shows extent of illegal Amazon gold mining

Record gold prices have encouraged a flourishing illegal mining trade that damages local nature and biodiversity and is raising significant health concerns.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear