Tag - climate-change

 
 

CLIMATE CHANGE

A pedestrian walks past air conditioning units in Tokyo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 21, 2024
Japan bakes as temperatures across the country rise above 35 C
In Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, the mercury hit 38.2 C, while Miyazu, Kyoto Prefecture, saw the temperature rise to 37.3 C.
Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Jul 21, 2024
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals
Can a 700-year-old dance have an effect on extreme heat or torrential rain? Probably not. When you're feeling powerless, though, any little thing helps.
Passersby holding parasols walk through Tokyo on July 9 amid a heatstroke alert in the capital and other prefectures.
JAPAN / Boiling Point
Jul 19, 2024
Boiling Point
This special series focused on this year’s scorching summer will also lay the groundwork for enhanced heat coverage in future years.
A solar farm in Shilin, China. Last year, China installed more solar panels than the United States has in its entire history.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 19, 2024
Why the era of China’s soaring carbon emissions might be ending
The biggest factor in the shift is changes to how China produces its electricity.
The potential of AI in fighting climate change is immense. It can accelerate progress by redesigning industrial processes, optimizing transport systems, maximizing energy efficiency and significantly reducing emissions.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2024
Embracing the AI-energy-climate nexus
AI's potential to fight climate change is immense. It can accelerate progress by redesigning industrial processes, maximizing energy efficiency and reducing emissions.
An air conditioning unit being installed in Kotor, Montenegro, on June 22. Life almost stopped in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica earlier this summer, with cars and buses getting stuck in gridlock as traffic lights went out, the internet crashed and security alarms blared in reaction to a sudden loss of power supply.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jul 15, 2024
The world’s power grids are failing as the planet warms
Hotter summers cause spikes in demand for cooling, but upgrades to power infrastructure haven’t kept pace with climate change.
Storage tanks at the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage project controlled by oil companies Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies in Norway. The Norwegian government is funding 80% of the initial investment for the state-of-the-art facility.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2024
A giant carbon dump gives glimpse into net-zero future
As the cost of renewables declines at pace with fossil fuel use, the need for carbon, capture and storage tech will diminish, making cost reductions a challenge.
Olympic rings are displayed on Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris ahead of the city hosting the 2024 Olympic Games. One way of reducing the carbon emissions of mega sporting events is to limit the attendance of spectators traveling by air.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2024
Only locals should be allowed to attend the Olympics
The single best way of reducing the carbon emissions of an Olympics? Limiting ticket sales to locals. Evidence from the Tokyo Games shows how far-reaching the impact is.
Dolphins Arena in Nagoya. While the new IG Arena will almost certainly provide a more enjoyable experience for fans, the hope is that action on the raised ring will retain the heat that Dolphins Arena has long been famous for.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Jul 10, 2024
A farewell to a Nagoya sumo arena known for heat — inside and outside the ring
The upcoming Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament will be the last to be held at Dolphins Arena, which has been the scene of numerous memorable moments over the years.
Tea garden workers pluck tea leaves inside Durgabari Tea Estate on the outskirts of Agartala, India, in 2017.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jul 9, 2024
India's tea prices soar as extreme weather slashes output
The price rise could support the beleaguered Indian tea industry, which has been struggling with rising production costs.
Coal piles at Jera's Hekinan thermal power station in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, in October 2021
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jul 8, 2024
Japan should phase out coal power by 2035, climate group says
The nation should adjust its national targets and slash emissions by two-thirds by the middle of the next decade, according to the Japan Climate Initiative.
Hiroshi Matano, executive vice president of the World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, during an interview in Washington on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 8, 2024
World Bank official backs Japan to show regional climate leadership
There is significant room for emissions reductions in the Asia-Pacific region.
People take shelter under parasols set up in Tokyo's Ginza district amid soaring temperatures Sunday.
JAPAN
Jul 7, 2024
Shizuoka hits 40 C as temperatures soar nationwide
Japan on Sunday recorded high temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius across a broad swath of the country from Tohoku to Kyushu.
Children sit near a flooding seawall during high tide in Serua, Fiji, in 2022.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2024
Japan to share weather data with Pacific island nations
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will announce the plan at the July 16-18 summit in Tokyo with Pacific island leaders.
New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer addresses the nation on Friday in London.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jul 5, 2024
U.K.’s election is a rare win against anti-climate campaigns
Keir Starmer’s Labour has a manifesto that puts climate and clean energy front and center, unlike some parties in Europe and the U.S.
Fish swim near recovering coral reefs after bleaching in late December 2023 due to extreme weather, in Bondalem village, Buleleng regency, Bali, Indonesia, on June 20.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 5, 2024
Coral bleachings devastate Bali reefs as sea temperatures rise
Indonesia, which had its most severe dry season last year since 2019, has roughly 5.1 million hectares of coral reefs and accounts for 18% of the world's total.
You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 4, 2024
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one
Summer music festivals are back, but for how long? Climate change is putting the heat on our favorite outdoor entertainment.
If Joe Biden doesn’t let another, better suited candidate run against Donald Trump, he will undo decades of public service.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2024
Will Joe Biden go and spoil it all?
Like former presidential candidate Ralph Nader before him, Biden shouldn't stand in the way of the Democrats winning the election and should let another candidate run.
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo last Friday ended what was known as Chevron deference, a legal doctrine holding that courts should defer to the technical expertise of agency staff in interpreting unclear laws.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 3, 2024
Supreme Court gives Trump ‘sword’ to slash Biden’s climate rules
Its ruling last Friday ended a legal doctrine holding that courts should defer to the technical expertise of federal agency staff in interpreting unclear laws.
Each week Neha Mankani comes by boat ambulance to Baba, an old fishing settlement near Karachi, and reportedly one of the world's most crowded islands with some 6,500 people crammed into 0.15 square kilometers.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 2, 2024
Midwife on the front line of climate change on Pakistan's islands
Climate change is swelling the surrounding seas off the megacity of Karachi and baking the land with rising temperatures.

Longform

Dul Saroth (left) and Soeum Samrach, deminers with the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, practice using the Advanced Landmine Imaging System in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in August.
The Japanese tech that could one day make Southeast Asia landmine-free