Tag - environment

 
 

ENVIRONMENT

At least 172 out of 1,928 assessed species of wild bees face extinction in Europe, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Oct 13, 2025
Europe's bees and butterflies at risk, conservation body says
At least 172 out of 1,928 assessed species of wild bees face extinction in Europe compared to 77 in 2014, the IUCN has said.
A worker feeds shrimp in Pandeglang, Banten province, Indonesia, on July 29.
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 9, 2025
Indonesia says no to scrap metal after shrimp radiation scare
Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said the pause aims to ensure that the local steel-recycling industry meets radiation safety standards.
U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed climate change as "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world" and his administration has reportedly moved to quash debate on the issue.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 8, 2025
Trump calls climate change a con; science braces for more
The Department of Energy is reportedly telling staff to avoid using language that runs counter to the president's views on climate science.
Solar panels at the Gujarat Solar Park in Gujarat, India
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Oct 8, 2025
Global renewable power output overtakes coal for the first time, report says
Curbing coal power generation is regarded as vital by most scientists to meeting global climate targets.
The Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field and an adjoining solar power farm in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, in March 2021. Japan's forward-looking reforms are embedding climate risk management into the core of corporate decision-making.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 6, 2025
Japan’s blueprint for climate finance sets global standard
While no country has all the answers, Japan is demonstrating what sustained, organized action on mobilizing finance for the clean energy transition looks like in practice.
Government Pension Investment Fund President Kazuto Uchida has said that an investment approach targeting environmental and social goals ultimately leads to economic and capital markets growth.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 6, 2025
World’s biggest pension fund puts impact investing on the agenda
In Japan, impact investing strategies are likely to center around climate, health care, wellbeing and inclusivity.
Kuwait, despite its vast oil wealth, is facing worsening power outages due to political gridlock, underinvestment and climate pressures — highlighting the unsustainability of fossil fuel dependence in a warming world.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2025
Why the most oil-rich country can’t keep the lights on
Electricity was cut to 30 regions in April as temperatures soared and households cranked up the air conditioning.
An aerial view shows the contrast between the green zone and the desert landscape of the Kubuqi Desert, in Ordos, in China's northern Inner Mongolia region.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 3, 2025
China's 'Great Green Wall' brings hope but also hardship
While the project has been credited with "greening" over 90 million hectares, it risks erasing the traditional nomadic practices of ethnic Mongolians.
An aerial view of Tuvalu in 2024. Rising sea levels caused by climate change have prompted the Tuvalu government to strike a climate migration pact with Australia.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 30, 2025
Developing countries accuse rich of broken climate promises at U.N.
Leaders of developing countries say rich nations must provide resources to cope with climate change, a crisis they created, but such nations have not met their commitments.
China is reshaping the global energy landscape by pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy investments across the Global South, creating jobs and long-term influence on a scale comparable to the Marshall Plan.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2025
China is winning its power play for the Global South
Beijing’s green energy projects are bringing jobs, growth and cheap electricity to the developing world.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses members of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. At a climate summit hosted by Guterres on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 7%-10% from its peak by 2035.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 25, 2025
Beijing takes the lead with new climate plans amid Washington’s denial
China's reduction target marked the first time the world's biggest emitter pledged a cut in emissions, rather than just limiting their growth.
A flowering canola crop grows in the Canadian prairies, with smoky air from forest fires to the north obscuring the morning sun, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Sep 23, 2025
The unexpected upside of Canada's wildfires 
Canada is the world's largest producer of canola, growing 21 million acres in a band along the country's vast northern forests.
Smoke billows from the Singapore-registered container ship MV X-Press Pearl, which had been burning for eleven consecutive days, while vessels try to extinguish the fire in the sea off Sri Lanka's Colombo Harbor on May 30, 2021.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Sep 23, 2025
Singapore shipper rejects $1B damages over Sri Lanka's worst pollution incident
The company operated the MV X-Press Pearl that sank off Colombo Port in 2021 while carrying 81 containers of hazardous goods and hundreds of metric tons of plastic pellets.
An offshore wind turbine off the coast of Goto in Nagasaki Prefecture
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2025
Floating wind power sets sail in Japan's energy shift
Still heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels, Japan has declared offshore wind energy a "trump card" in its drive to make renewables.
One of Singapore Design’s Week’s lighter exhibitions is the “Unnatural History Museum of Singapore,” where levity and engineering combat anxieties over ecological crises.
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 20, 2025
‘Pluriversal’ Singapore Design Week brings solution-oriented works
Running through Sept. 21, the design fair in the island city-state grapples with issues especially common in Japan.
The coal-fired Hunter Power Plant in Castle Dale, Utah in 2024. A former U.S. climate envoy says President Donald Trump is leading the world "in the wrong direction" on climate and weaponizing clean energy as a culture war issue.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 18, 2025
Ex-U.S. climate envoy: Trump threatening 'consensus science' worldwide
John Podesta, former U.S. President Joe Biden's senior point person on international climate policy, testified in a case challenging the administration's fossil fuel agenda.
Abandoning quarterly reporting would see the U.S. market join a global shift away from the practice and could help investors pushing boards to do more on issues such as climate change that are set to increasingly impact corporate value.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 17, 2025
Climate-conscious investors back Trump's call to end quarterly reports
Trump's call to end quarterly reporting has received support from an unlikely source: international investors pushing business to do more on longer-term sustainability issues.
The "Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion" at the Osaka Expo on Thursday. Fukuyama in Hiroshima Prefecture aims to relocate the pavilion to a site in the city after the event ends on Oct. 13.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2025
Reuse pavilions and equipment, Osaka Expo organizer urges
The organizer is encouraging local governments and companies to reuse buildings and equipment including air conditioners and lighting.
Industry minister Yoji Muto speaks during a news conference on Monday in Osaka.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2025
Countries vow to quadruple the use of sustainable fuels by 2035
Biofuels are expected to contribute to carbon reductions as plants used as their raw materials absorb carbon dioxide while growing.
Despite centuries of overfishing and ecological collapse, the recovery of tuna stocks shows that strong regulation and economic self-interest can make once-endangered species sustainably abundant again.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 16, 2025
Tuna sushi is safe from extinction, for now
With the exception of Mediterranean albacore (a favorite of Spanish canneries) and bigeye in the Indian Ocean, every population is now being fished within sustainable levels.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building