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September 10, 2025
 

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ENVIRONMENT

China, led by firms like BYD and CATL, dominates green tech, which is forcing the EU to choose between defensive policies or collaboration on clean trade and investment to advance climate goals.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2025
Can Europe and China forge a climate connection?
Europe should forge a shared competitiveness agenda with China, which would allow it to use its strengths.
NASA says its satellite imagery shows the Earth is becoming drier — at least the parts where most people live.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2025
The Earth is drying out and we need to act urgently
Measurements from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites suggest the continents have been losing fresh water at an alarming rate since 2002.
Pakistani soldiers ferry flood-affected villagers evacuated by boat from the Muzaffargarh district in the country's Punjab province on Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2025
Pakistan's latest floods compound grim reality of climate finance shortfall
Less-developed countries that contribute minimally to climate change bear the brunt of its impacts as funding pledges by advanced, higher-emitting countries fail to be fulfilled.
A group of children try to save the world from environmental collapse, one prank at a time, in “How Dare You.”
CULTURE / Film
Sep 4, 2025
‘How Dare You’ turns environmental activism into a youthful adventure
In her latest film, director Mipo Oh brings a serious edge to the lighthearted hijinks of three kids trying to save the world from environmental collapse, one prank at a time.
Plastic fish-shaped soy sauce containers, which have been banned in South Australia, on Tuesday in suburban Sydney.
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2025
Australian state bans fish-shaped soy sauce bottles to curb plastic pollution
The soy sauce containers were added on Monday by the government of South Australia to a list of prohibited single-use plastic products, which also include disposable straws.
Fumes rise from the coal-fired Hunter Power Plant in Castle Dale, Utah, in 2024. A 141-page Energy Department report challenged by more than 85 scientists in a joint analysis appeared almost in tandem with a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to rescind a 2009 endangerment finding — the bedrock of many U.S. greenhouse gas regulations.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 3, 2025
Scientists assail ‘cherry-picking’ of Trump administration climate report
The report appeared almost in tandem with a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to rescind a 2009 finding that's the bedrock of many U.S. greenhouse gas regulations.
Lightship co-founder and CEO Toby Kraus says his company's model of recreational vehicle attracts both hardcore environmentalists and RV veterans who aren’t necessarily concerned about climate change.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 2, 2025
Road trips are getting cleaner and quieter as RVs go electric
This year, serious alternatives are emerging to the gas-guzzling rigs chugging between national parks.
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 1, 2025
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
Temperatures were more than 2.36 degrees Celsius higher than average across Japan in August, with the heat expected to continue into this month.
"It's not just about sales. It's about system change," said Marty Pomphrey, general manager of Patagonia Japan, on Aug. 6.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 1, 2025
‘Cool’ Patagonia wants to take used items into the mainstream
The American outdoor brand is looking to make the offering of secondhand goods alongside new products the next step of its evolution.
Hiroyuki Adachi, managing director of Shelter, a wooden architecture construction firm in Yamagata, speaks during a seminar in Sendai in July.
BUSINESS / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Sep 1, 2025
Wooden high-rise buildings increasing in Tohoku amid decarbonization trend
Major real estate developers and construction companies are focusing on wood, pushed by legislation and systems encouraging the use of domestically produced lumber.
The Lhasa River, a major tributary of the Yarlung Zangbo River, flows near the southern part of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. China’s new megadam project could become a geopolitical and ecological time bomb. Getty Images
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2025
The global perils of China’s new ‘superdam’ project
One might have expected the revelation of China's huge dam project to set off alarm bells worldwide. Instead, the reaction has been muted.
The Ming Yang OceanX in the Qingzhou IV offshore wind farm near Yangjiang, China, on Aug. 8.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 29, 2025
China is running the world's most powerful floating wind turbine
The OceanX is an eloquent symbol of the ambitions of Chinese green technology companies.
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Aug 28, 2025
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Dramatic withdrawal by trading house from three projects comes amid similar moves globally.
People shield themselves from the sun with umbrellas in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2025
Tokyo logs record 10 days of 35 C or hotter, weather agency says
Japan sweltered through its hottest ever June and July this year.
Mitsubishi Corporation withdrew from three offshore wind projects in Japan, dealing a setback to the emerging industry as it faces slow development and escalating costs.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 27, 2025
Mitsubishi withdraws from three offshore wind projects in Japan
The dent to Japan’s nascent sector threatens to further derail the fossil fuel-dependent nation’s energy transition and climate goals.
An employee at a wholesaler puts a price tag on a package of sea urchins from Hokkaido at Tsukiji Outer Market in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 26, 2025
Warming seas add to food inflation woes as urchin rice bowls hit ¥18,000
Policymakers have mostly blamed rising food prices on the weak yen's upward pressure on import costs, but the effects of global warming now also loom as a risk.
Traffic along a highway in New Delhi. India, the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, will be able to access Japanese decarbonization technologies at low cost under a joint crediting mechanism.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2025
Japan and India to use joint crediting mechanism in emission-cutting plan
The yet-to-be-announced plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in India using Japanese technologies will allow Japan to count part of the reductions as its own.
A man walks past a drilling machine damaged by protesters opposing the proposed 11,500 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Dam Project, in Parong, Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India, on Aug. 1.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 25, 2025
China's new mega-dam triggers fears of water war in India
Delhi estimates the Chinese dam will allow Beijing to divert as much as 40 billion cubic meters of water, or just over a third of what is received annually at a key border point.
A tourist enjoys the Ras Hankorab beach in the Red Sea Wadi Al-Gemal protectorate in southern Egypt. The local environment is under threat amid development projects.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 21, 2025
Tourism deal puts one of Egypt's last wild shores at risk
The shadowy contract, which allows for the construction of a resort on one of the country's last undisturbed Red Sea beaches, was halted but not permanently canceled.
Muddied prospectors pan for gold in Manica province, Mozambique, near the Zimbabwe border, in 2010.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 20, 2025
Mozambique's illegal miners reap risky rewards but land suffers
Rivers around mining sites are polluted, and mercury has seeped into the soil, creating a nightmare for farmers.
Japan eyes two types of 'hometown resident' registration
People buy groceries from a mobile supermarket in a rural area of Nagomi, Kumamoto Prefecture. The government is considering a new "hometown resident" registration system to help strengthen regional revitalization measures.
Ed Sheeran teams up with Tokyo’s Oedo Line
The “Oh! Ed! Collaboration Campaign,” launched on Tokyo's Keio Line to celebrate the Friday release of Ed Sheeran’s latest album, “Play,” includes a eight-car train dedicated to the pop star's music and trivia related to his career
Workers say corporate South Korea was warned about questionable U.S. visas before Hyundai raid
Activists holding signs that reads "No one is illegal!" protest against a huge immigration raid last week in the U.S. state of Georgia, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday.
Three Japanese nationals among those detained by ICE at Hyundai plant in Georgia
Investigators from the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations at a factory being built by South Korea's Hyundai Motor in Georgia on Friday
Why more hotels in Japan are offering room-only service
Nipponia Hotel Ise Kawasaki Merchant Town in Ise, Mie Prefecture
Niinami’s ouster quick but not unusual as corporations protect reputation
Takeshi Niinami resigns as chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings.
As Manila modernizes its military, new opportunities emerge for Tokyo
A Brahmos missile system is displayed during a rehearsal for a military parade in New Delhi in January. The Philippines will soon receive its second batch of the supersonic cruise missiles from India.
Shizuoka farmers fight to preserve sustainable tea method that’s steeped in tradition
As of August 2024, the number of confirmed chagusaba farmers had fallen to 302, just over half the 582 reported in 2015, according to the Shizuoka Chagusaba Farming Method Promotion Council.
Search is on for loopholes in Japan’s $550 billion investment pledge
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick argues that U.S. President Donald Trump has sole authority to invest Japan's promised $550 billion.
In rural Hokkaido, the stops and starts of tourism revival on full display
Redevelopment plans for Kawayu Onsen have hit some snags — an example of how bringing tourists back to declining rural communities is far from easy work.

Podcast

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

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight
By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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