Tag - change

 
 

CHANGE

Flames blaze from a chimney at Western Europe's largest liquefied natural gas plant, Hammerfest LNG, in Hammerfest, Norway, on March 14.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 9, 2024
Banks made big climate promises. A new study doubts they work.
Researchers found a reduction in lending to sectors targeted under the pledges was the same as for banks that had not made the same commitment.
Broken fridges in the yard of a recycling workers' tenement house in Dongxiaokou village in Beijing in 2014
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 8, 2024
Climate-warming gases being smuggled into Europe, investigation says
Law enforcement agencies across the European Union are struggling to keep track of illicit shipments entering via Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.
Supporters of the Senior Women for Climate Protection association outside the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on March 29, 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 8, 2024
How three European human rights cases could shape climate litigation
The verdicts will set a precedent for future litigation on how rising temperatures affect people's right to a livable planet.
China’s greenhouse footprint can be boiled down to three factors: its economic growth, the energy intensity of that growth and the carbon intensity of that energy.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2024
China’s growth ambitions will erase the world’s climate gains
Global greenhouse pollution hit a record and increased 1.1% last year, the International Energy Agency reported. That was almost entirely a China story.
Jera's thermal power station in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, recently started co-firing coal with 20% of ammonia, a technology supported by the government's "green transformation," or GX, policy.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 7, 2024
Is Japan’s green transformation investing in the past or future?
Japan issued its first green transformation bonds, but the policy breathes new life into fossil fuel-based projects rather than pulling the plug on them.
If it's too hot to do much (and the costs for air conditioning continue to surge) during the day, it might be time to consider shifting the bulk of our activities to cooler nighttime hours.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 6, 2024
A solution for scorching days: Do everything at night.
Working night shifts, however, comes with a host of health problems, increasing the risk of diabetes, heart disease and even cancer.
Developing nations feel that international trade rules favor developed countries and undermine their interests, particularly in areas like agriculture and fishing subsidies.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2024
Why have developing countries soured on multilateralism?
The efforts of advanced economies to link trade agreements to labor and environmental standards could disadvantage developing nations.
Climate change, with its natural disasters, is putting nuclear facilities and weapons complexes at risk.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2024
Climate change and nuclear waste are a toxic stew
Nuclear power could be a crucial part of a clean-energy transition, but not if it comes with a high risk of multiple Fukushima-like catastrophes.
Reindeer that belong to Sami herder Nils Mathis Sara, 65, run in a winter pasture near Geadgebarjavri up on the Finnmark plateau, Norway, last month.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 3, 2024
Reindeer herders battle power line needed for Norway's climate goal
The conflict illustrates the difficult choices countries must make to cut greenhouse gas emissions and power future growth.
People wait to collect drinking water on March 14 amid an ongoing water crisis in Bengaluru, which has been hit by drought.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024
India’s most innovative cities are running out of water
Drought is crippling India's tech hubs of Bengaluru and Hyderabad, casting a dark shadow on these cities' attractiveness in the era of climate change.
Around 90% of China’s increased oil demand between 2021 and 2024 comes from chemical feedstocks, driven by the manufacturing of products such as those sold by fast-fashion retailers Shein and Tamu.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2024
China's Shein and Temu are driving oil, not Toyota and GM
The cause behind recent a surge in China's oil demand is not to be found in people's transport habits, including car use, but in fast-fashion clothing.
Children wash their hands with a new public pump installed as part of a climate resilient water system in Inn Chey in Kratie Province.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 31, 2024
Japan sits at the forefront of climate resilient infrastructure in Southeast Asia
Japanese businesses and government agencies are pouring billions of yen into various programs across Cambodia and Southeast Asia to reduce climate risks.
Cherry blossoms bloom at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Friday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 31, 2024
Tokyo marks final day of March with record high temperature for month
Cherry blossoms in the capital finally burst into bloom on Friday, marking the latest blooming in over a decade.
Jacky Im, Elizabeth Chan and Kate Maco are the founders of Neptune Robotics, a firm building robots that remove debris from the hulls of ships to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 27, 2024
Underwater robots offering practical route to greener shipping
Technology that removes the algae, barnacles and debris that accumulate on ships' hulls can reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency.
Though renewable energy can significantly reduce carbon emissions, if growth remains the global economic imperative, increased energy use will prevent us from reaching decarbonization goals.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 25, 2024
A call for economic degrowth
To achieve the systemic change needed to tackle the climate crisis, we must abandon GDP as the measure of social progress. This is what degrowth calls for.
A coal-fired power plant in Shanghai in October 2021. For years, analysts expected coal production to plateau after it hit a then-record in 2013. Then came 2021, when power shortages in China set Beijing on a path to order more mining to ensure energy security.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Mar 24, 2024
Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is preparing for a long goodbye
Output hit a record last year, and producers expect a future where coal will be required to balance renewable energy for decades.
While policies differ from country to country, a common goal is to clean up an aviation industry that for a century has relied on fossil fuels to function.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2024
Expensive flights become new normal on $5 trillion green transition
Sustainable aviation fuel is the industry’s primary means of reaching a 2050 net zero target.
The Monrovia NSU Challenger bulk carrier transits the expanded canal through the Cocoli Locks of the Panama Canal in April 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 22, 2024
'We all need water': Panama's canal, and people, thirst for more
A severe drought last year caused water levels in Gatun Lake, which provides drinking water and is the main reservoir for the canal, to fall.
Homes affected by sea level rise on Tierra Bomba Island, Cartagena, Colombia
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 22, 2024
Global sea level jumped due to El Nino and climate change, NASA says
The global average sea level rose by about 0.76 centimeters from 2022 to 2023 — nearly four times the increase of the previous year.
Ice forms on the window of an airplane heading from Iqaluit to Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada. The Earth's poles are warming faster than elsewhere, with the North Pole heating up about twice as fast as the rest of Earth for the last 30 years.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 20, 2024
Climate change speeds up as major indicators blow off the charts, WMO warns
2023 was the warmest year on record — with global average temperatures 1.45 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores