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EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2008

Climate-change meeting stalls

There is near-unanimous agreement — the few stubborn holdouts will likely never be convinced — that climate change is real and the world must respond aggressively to it. The existing framework for action, the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012 and its effectiveness has been limited by the failure of...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2008

Preserving tropical forests also cuts emissions

SINGAPORE — Can the world's remaining tropical forests in Indonesia and elsewhere be protected and brought into the battle against climate change? Working out ways of halting or slowing the cutting of forests for valuable timber and agriculture is now being discussed at U.N. climate change negotiations...
EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 2008

Prepping a new climate deal

A two-week meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP14, is now under way in Poznan, Poland, with some 10,000 delegates and environmentalists from some 190 countries attending. The participants are supposed to discuss international efforts...
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2008

Talking past each other

Questions raised in a Lower House plenary session by Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa seemed as extraordinary as Prime Minister Taro Aso's first policy speech was unusual. In his speech Monday, Mr. Aso had posed several questions to the DPJ. On Wednesday, Mr. Ozawa hardly tried to corner...
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Sep 3, 2008

Kitajima, softball team showed mettle in Beijing

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part one appeared in Sunday's newspaper.
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS
Aug 22, 2008

Japan outplays U.S. to win softball gold

BEIJING — This was on-field drama at its best: workhorse pitcher Yukiko Ueno playing the starring role, Ayumi Karino and Eri Yamada shining in their supporting roles and Japan destroying the U.S. softball team's aura of invincibility.
Reader Mail
Jul 27, 2008

Belarus girds for warming fight

There are probably very few people nowadays who have not heard of the Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, not so many know that there exists only one amendment to this document -- to Annex B to be exact. It basically sets my country's commitments regarding the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions between...
BUSINESS
Jul 10, 2008

Power utilities under pressure to clean up their act

In March, a report compiled by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on greenhouse gas emissions of about 9,000 companies rocked the electric power industry.
EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2008

Building an eco-friendly society

The government's 2008 white paper on the environment deals with the transition to a low-carbon and recycling society. In view of the expiration in 2012 of the Kyoto Protocol, it stresses the need to build a post-Kyoto framework under which all major greenhouse gas-emitting countries strive to curb emissions....
BUSINESS
Jun 14, 2008

G8 huddles on oil, food crises, emissions fund

OSAKA (Dollar discussions: Page 8) Finance ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations gathered Friday in Osaka to address the rising price of oil, the food crisis and funding for a new climate change initiative to help developing economies lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 5, 2008

Aomori G8 talks face nuclear-energy nudge

OSAKA — With oil hovering at around $130 a barrel and pressure growing on the world's major greenhouse gas emitters to forge a new climate change treaty from 2012, global energy security and fast-tracking "clean and green" alternatives to fossil fuels are expected to dominate this weekend's Group of...
BUSINESS
May 30, 2008

Japan aims to double Africa trade

YOKOHAMA — Japan aims to double its trade with Africa in five years as it seeks closer ties with resource-rich countries on the continent, trade minister Akira Amari said Thursday.
JAPAN / TICAD IV
May 29, 2008

Japan vows ambitious Africa aid

YOKOHAMA — Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda kicked off a major Africa development conference Wednesday by pledging to double Japan's annual net official development assistance to the continent to $1.8 billion by 2012 and extend up to $4 billion in new yen loans over the next five years, in particular for...
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2008

Fukuda, Lee agree to push North

Japan and South Korea will work together to push for the denuclearization of North Korea and work closely with the United States to achieve world peace and stability, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and President Lee Myung Bak agreed Monday in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2008

The post-Kyoto high ground

The next Group of Eight summit, which Japan will host in Toyako, Hokkaido, is less than four months away. The fight against global warming will be at the top of the agenda. As the host nation responsible for getting participating nations to take concerted action, Japan needs as soon as possible to work...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2008

Set '05 as post-Kyoto base year: Japan

Japan will push for an easier target for reducing greenhouse gases in the next international pact on global warming than in the previous one, a top bureaucrat said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Mar 10, 2008

Get set for emissions trading

The year 2007 marked the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Kyoto Protocol; the 20th anniversary of the release of the report "Our Common Future" by the World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland (the expression "sustainable development"...

Longform

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?