Tag - pollution

 
Menu
Search
 
October 17, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

POLLUTION

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A huge piece of plastic waste is pulled up from the waters near Tatara Island, Nagasaki Prefecture, on July 10.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 15, 2025
Japan backs development of new materials to cut marine plastic waste
A five-year plan starting this fiscal year calls for the development of a new material that can be used for several years in water before it slowly decomposes over time.
Smoke streams from a smokestack at a refinery in Anacortes, Washington, last October. The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Friday to stop requiring thousands of polluting facilities to report the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that they release into the air.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 13, 2025
U.S. moves to scrap emissions reporting by polluters
U.S. President Donald Trump has heavily promoted new oil, gas, and coal extraction while moving to suppress competition from solar and wind.
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.
A pedestrian bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 7, 2025
Polluted and poor: Blighted U.S. cities tackle 'toxic soup'
The worst effect could be seen in poor, minority areas, where heavy industry, manufacturing and transport tend to concentrate.
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.
Magret John (left) delivers a sack of plastic waste collected in her neighborhood to a Human Needs Project official at a collection point in the Kibera informal settlement of Nairobi on Aug. 11.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 26, 2025
'Restoring dignity': Kenya slum exchange offers water for plastic
The Human Needs Project provides water and sanitation services in a part of Kenya where they are scarce and costly.
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.
Workers carry solar panels to install them at a solar farm in the desert in Lingwu, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, in April.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025
The world’s biggest polluter is cleaning up its act
Coal output is still climbing, but China’s clean power surge means much of it now sits in stockpiles rather than fueling growth.
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.
Villagers pan for gold in Bombana district of Indonesia's Southeast Sulawesi province in 2009.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 19, 2025
Indonesia grapples with small-scale illegal gold mining
Local authorities face the challenge of encouraging villagers to keep to less-destructive ways of making money, such as sustainable agriculture.
Plastic bottles and other refuse collected from Border Field State Park Beach in San Diego in May
ENVIRONMENT / ANALYSIS
Aug 16, 2025
Tough U.S. stance casts gloom over plastics pollution deal after Geneva flop
Many states and campaigners blamed the failure on oil-producers including the U.S, which they said urged others to reject caps on new plastic production.
Delegates rest outside of the assembly hall in Geneva on Friday after talks aimed at striking a landmark treaty on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution ended without a deal.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 15, 2025
'Bad actors' blamed as plastic pollution treaty talks end again without deal
Countries said they wanted further negotiations despite six rounds of talks over three years having failed to find agreement.
An Afghan woman walks next to a pile of trash full of plastic bags in Kabul.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 10, 2025
Momentum sagging at U.N. plastic pollution treaty talks
The negotiations have four working days left to strike a legally-binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.
Coalition talks could bring Takaichi closer to being PM
Nippon Ishin no Kai leader and Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura meets with Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Trump declares U.S.-China trade war as Bessent floats long truce
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.
Asia can learn from Europe’s immigration mistakes
Refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, crowd a platform at a train station in Budapest in September 2015. Hungary's focus on pro-natalist policies and minimal immigration has led to a significant improvement in its fertility rate compared to Japan.
Singapore thrived in a U.S.-led world. Now what?
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt moors at Changi Naval Base in Singapore in April 2018.
Sumo is about to hit London and the West with a force previously unseen
Preparations advance on Monday for the Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Sumo is about to hit London and the West with a force previously unseen
Preparations advance on Monday for the Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Number of scenarios now on the table for who might be Japan’s next prime minister
Newly-elected leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Sanae Takaichi (right) celebrates with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after winning the LDP leadership election in Tokyo on October 4.
Pace eyes great strides for Japan’s art market
Pace Japan Vice President Kyoko Hattori, the de facto head of the nation’s business, believes a larger, more lucrative art market will allow Japan to be more attractive for collectors.
A frenetic diplomatic schedule looms for Japan’s next leader — whomever that may be
As horse-trading and speculation surge over who will be elected the next prime minister in parliament — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Sanae Takaichi or a possible candidate put forward by a unified opposition — Japan’s next leader will be confronted with a quick succession of key diplomatic events.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.

Podcast

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

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
By Patrick St. Michel

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons
Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER