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April 25, 2025
 

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EMISSIONS

Last year was the hottest on record in Japan and globally. An enduring stretch of peak warm weather worldwide has prompted scientists to look for the causes as they try to understand whether we have entered a dangerous phase of accelerated heating.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2025
Creating the best possible climate models is existential
Scientists' work in building and interpreting climate models must be fine-tuned so that this data can inform the policies capable of living up to the challenge of global heating.
A photo taken from a Norwegian surveillance aircraft shows Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in international waters off the coast of Norway in October 2016.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 23, 2025
Global warming is a security threat and armies must adapt, experts say
Defense departments have already underscored that a warming planet poses major national security challenges, and militaries need to adapt to respond to these evolving threats.
When Jera co-fired ammonia at its Hekinan coal plant in Aichi Prefecture last year, it reduced emissions by 20%.
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2025
Japan embraces lab-made fuels despite costs and climate concerns
Japanese utilities say e-methane is chemically almost identical to natural gas but is effectively carbon-neutral.
The Northern Lights Carbon Capture and Storage facility in Bergen, Norway.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 19, 2025
Big bets on speculative carbon capture tech ignore today’s solutions
Companies from Occidental Petroleum to Microsoft are among the investors throwing billions at carbon capture startups.
Microsoft is set to use energy from new reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 10, 2025
AI surge to double data center electricity demand by 2030, report says
AI can also unlock opportunities to produce and consume electricity more efficiently, the International Energy Agency said in its first report on the technology's implications.
Cargo ships are loaded with containers at the port of Bangkok on April 3.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 10, 2025
U.S. exits carbon talks on shipping and urges others to follow
A State Department spokesperson confirmed that Washington would not be "engaging in negotiations" at the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization.
A tank containing liquid hydrogen in Kobe, where a special shipping terminal has been built in order to import liquid hydrogen from Australia.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025
Japan-Australia flagship hydrogen project stumbles
The blockbuster project is hanging in the balance over questions about its climate credentials.
Hino Motors pleaded guilty on Wednesday over a multiyear emissions fraud scheme in the United States and must pay $1.6 billion in penalties.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 20, 2025
Toyota's Hino pleads guilty to U.S. emissions fraud and is fined $1.6 billion
Hino admitted that between 2010 and 2019, it used "illicit short-cuts" and submitted false applications for engine certification approvals.
The buildings sector consumes 32% of the world's energy and contributes 34% of CO2 emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 18, 2025
'More and faster': U.N. calls to shrink buildings' carbon footprint
CO2 emissions from the building sector rose around 5% in the last decade when they should have fallen 28%, according to a new report.
While climate demonstrations around the world often draw thousands of participants, in Japan such demonstrations rarely break the 100-person barrier.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 16, 2025
Japan’s youth climate activists still searching for a breakthrough
With Japan endorsing climate targets criticized as unambitious, activists are looking to education and more tailored strategies to make an impact.
The Stratos Direct Air Capture Facility, a joint venture between Occidental Petroleum and asset manager BlackRock, in Ector County, Texas, last July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2025
Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era
The lobbying strategy is to frame CCS as "an economic competitiveness and American leadership issue."
The International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland
OLYMPICS
Mar 14, 2025
Olympians make climate plea to IOC presidential candidates
Seven candidates are vying to replace Thomas Bach as president in a ballot of IOC members at Costa Navarino, Greece, on March 20.
Secondhand clothing store "Onward Reuse Park Kichijoji" in December in the city of Musashino in Tokyo
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2025
Eyeing waste, Japanese apparel industry pushes sustainable fashion
About 60% of the clothes sold in Japan are thrown away, according to the Environment Ministry.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has decided to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a spokesperson said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 4, 2025
Japan’s SMFG joins Wall Street in exiting net zero banking group
Japan’s second-largest bank has decided to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Hidetaka Ishii, an official at the Chiba Municipal Government, says close coordination with private-sector operators is key for regional decarbonization efforts.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Mar 2, 2025
Japan’s climate heroes show potential and limits of local initiatives
Chiba and others show the potential for local areas to accelerate the energy transition, as well as the challenges of building locally driven, carbon-free energy models.
The government will oblige some companies, particularly those in high-emitting industries including steelmaking, to participate in an emissions trading system to be introduced in fiscal 2026.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 26, 2025
Japan adopts bill obliging firms' participation in emissions trading
Companies that emit at least 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year will be required to participate in the country's carbon emissions trading system.
Ancient trees and animals play crucial roles in ecosystems, carbon storage and even human health, yet their populations are dwindling due to deforestation, fishing and climate change.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2025
Who will speak for the trees?
A slew of scientific discoveries shows why we should protect not just 1,000-year-old trees but also 200-year-old whales, 400-year-old fish and 10,000-year-old sea sponges.
A compressed natural gas station near Chennai on Wednesday
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 20, 2025
Osaka Gas plans to boost sales of city gas in India tenfold
India is developing a city gas network to promote the use of natural gas, which is less environmentally damaging than coal and fuel oil.
The Chip Mong Insee cement factory in Kampot province, Cambodia, on Jan. 9. An investigation has shown that the plastic credits sector relies heavily on the polluting cement industry to burn collected waste, despite concerns about health risks and carbon emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 20, 2025
'What would you have us do?': The plastic credits problem
Credits place no obligations on buyers to stop producing or using unrecyclable plastic that ends up in the environment.
Laborers at a shipyard on the outskirts of Dhaka. Worker deaths, injuries and exposure to hazardous substances are common in the ship-breaking industry, as is environmental harm with toxic chemicals seeping into the beach and water, harming marine life.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 19, 2025
Shipyards of Bangladesh brace as heavy emitting ships near end of life
Worker deaths and environmental harm are common in yards where vessels that have supplied richer nations are dismantled for scraps that can be used in manufacturing.
Japan must correct Trump’s false data for trade talks, says Kono
Former Foreign Minister Taro Kono
Japan wants to 'separate' tariff and security issues. That may be tough.
Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, poses with a "Make America Great Again" cap at the White House in Washington on April 16.
Social media helps fuel growing 'sex tourism' in Japan
People walk down a street in the red-light entertainment area of Kabukicho in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on March 31.
Japan set to fine cyclists on the spot for rule violations from 2026
Under new rules, those who use smartphones while riding a bicycle would be subject to the maximum fine of ¥12,000.
Naked man’s rampage in Saitama linked to one fatality and 10 injured
Police believe Daisuke Nishimura may have been involved in roughly 20 incidents in the 90 minutes leading up to his arrest, including a fatal hit-and-run and multiple assaults.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
Crow meat, goat tartare: Mauvaise Herbe raises its game
Crow meat, shaped into a ball and attached to a foot of the bird, is one of the peculiar offerings of game at Mauvaise Herbe.
Cases of epidural use in labor rise in Japan alongside concerns
Of the 721,000 childbirths reported in 2024 in Japan, 13.8% involved the use of an epidural, according to the Japan Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Nothing sells like Shohei Ohtani, MLB’s marketing megastar
People walk past an advertisement featuring Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani outside Tokyo Dome on March 18.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society
Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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