Search - environment

 
 
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 24, 2009

Students share hopes for nation's future environment

Each year on May 5, Japan celebrates Children's Day with waves of young families flooding local parks, playgrounds and amusement centers.
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2002

Uncertainty overshadows Earth summit

The largest United Nations gathering in history is to start in Johannesburg in nine days' time, with nations reflecting on the progress -- or the lack of it -- toward achieving a more sustainable world over the past decade and wrangling over how to do a better job in the future.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Updated environment plan to add new economic options

The Basic Environment Plan -- Japan's 5-year-old master plan for a more environmentally sustainable society -- is in the middle of a seismic revision.
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2018

Move the nation's environmental policy forward

The nation's Basic Environment Plan needs to be quickly fleshed out with concrete policy measures.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2000

Environment Agency rises a rank

In less than a month, the Environment Agency will -- at least in theory -- get its hands on a bigger piece of the administrative pie.
Hjelmer Hammeken, Greenland's greatest polar bear hunter, rides his dog sled to look for seals on the sea ice outside Ittoqqortoormiit, on the frozen Scoresbysund Fjord.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2024

On thin ice: Greenland's last Inuit polar bear hunters

Climate change and hunting quotas have been threatening the livelihood on which Inuit families have long survived.
Seaweed in the ocean off Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Local residents aim to restore seagrass and seaweed beds suffering from marine desertification, and their project has also been certified to receive "blue carbon" credits.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET
Jun 23, 2024

Japan looks to 'blue carbon' to cut emissions — and restore its coasts

The nation's net zero goal has driven interest in these ecosystems, but verifying the amount of carbon stored by seaweed presents a challenge.
Workers collect detritus after the Britain's Glastonbury Festival on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 4, 2024

Music festivals seek greener footprint

The world's top 1,000 DJs took 51,000 flights in 2019, equivalent to 35,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to climate group Clean Scene.
Debbie Wu tests her pair of sunglasses made from plastic waste at Trash Kitchen in Taipei.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 6, 2024

Taiwan workshop turns trash into sunglasses

Taipei's Trash Kitchen allows customers to create fashion out of plastic waste.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, speaks during a campaign rally at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Aug. 17.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 16, 2024

Trump stalks global climate talks as COP29 draws near

The election lands awkwardly as governments try to build global consensus in coming months not just around climate but stronger protections for the environment.
Fruits and vegetables sit wrapped in plastic in a supermarket in Tokyo in 2021
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 16, 2024

'Easy, convenient, cheap': How single-use plastic rules the world

Negotiators hope to reach the world's first treaty on plastic pollution this year, but single-use plastic remains hugely popular as a cheap and convenient choice.
An aircraft operated by Singapore Airlines takes off at Sydney Airport on Aug. 27. A trial that started last month in Asia makes it a reality to shave precious minutes off hourslong trips, depending upon what route a pilot chooses to take.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 23, 2024

How shortcuts across the skies can make flights greener: Q&A

In a trial of user-preferred routing, several airlines in Asia can take shortcuts on 38 routes to save time and fuel.
A flag with the logo of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference in front of the Baku Olympic Stadium, the venue of the summit, in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sept. 19
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 7, 2024

Environment takes center stage as global summits loom

The upcoming session isn't expected to break new ground but will take stock of progress since the last summit secured historic assurances for biodiversity.
Each year, millions of tons of trash and other pollutants enter the world's oceans, creating scenes like this one in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2024

Multinationals must stop flow of ocean waste in Global South

The world's oceans are being suffocated by millions of tons of waste, especially in the Global South. The corporations responsible need to clean up their mess.
Wind power turbines in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Oct 18, 2024

Japan studying measures for more renewable energy areas

Such measures will be included in a revision of the government's plan for tackling global warming.
Groove Armada’s Andy Cato at his farm in Oxfordshire, U.K.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Oct 28, 2024

How a DJ became an unlikely champion for green farming

Over the past six years, Andy Cato has built a network of more than 100 farmers in the U.K. and France to grow wheat using regenerative farming methods.
Smoke billows from a chimney at a combined-cycle gas turbine power plant in Drogenbos, Belgium, on Dec. 6, 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 4, 2024

The world promised to tame methane, but emissions are still rising

World leaders and fossil fuel executives have declared tackling methane — and doing so quickly — a crucial priority.
Rice fields in the town of Ozu, Kumamoto Prefecture. The water-filled paddies glistening under the sun is a symbol of a long-running effort to preserve the prefecture’s groundwater.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Nov 17, 2024

Japan's chipmaking rush pressures Kumamoto's special water supply

TSMC and others hope that support for existing projects and proper wastewater management can avoid undermining water development efforts lauded by the U.N.
A man walks past a gasoline station in Tokyo on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Nov 24, 2024

How Japan can exit the fossil fuel subsidies it can’t seem to quit

While offering relief to low-income households, such measures encourage the continued use of the fossil fuels driving climate change.
Plastic production is on track to triple by 2050, and microplastics have been found in air, fresh produce and even human breast milk.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Dec 1, 2024

Battle over curbing plastic output jeopardizes U.N. treaty hopes

The hoped-for treaty could be the most significant environmental protection deal since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Climate demonstrators protest against investments in fossil fuels during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington on Oct. 21.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 30, 2024

After a year of hard climate talks, ‘minilateralism’ is an alternative

Global environmental agreements have never been simple, but a variety of factors, such as political polarization, make countries less willing to compromise.
A demonstrator holds a banner with the image of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in Tijuana, Mexico, on Dec. 18.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / ANALYSIS
Jan 11, 2025

Politics, not climate, to drive sustainable finance trends in 2025

The return of Donald Trump as U.S. president heralds more regional divergence on everything from fund flows to legal cases and market regulations.
The findings on the alarming acceleration of warming have enormous ramifications for ocean health, as rising temperatures impact everything from coral reefs to fisheries.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 28, 2025

Oceans are warming faster and faster as the Earth traps more energy

The alarming acceleration helps explain why 2023 and 2024 saw unprecedented ocean temperatures — and more extreme storms.
A climate change demonstrator takes part in a protest to denounce the impact of U.S. politics on climate change, outside the U.S. Embassy in London on Jan. 11.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 5, 2025

Top climate scientist declares 2 degrees Celsius climate goal 'dead'

A stark new analysis concludes that Earth's climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought.
A structure burns during the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on Jan. 7.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 11, 2025

It’s ‘virtually certain’ the world has already breached 1.5 C

"Every increment of warming above 1.5 degrees Celsius means worse extremes,” said a research scientist.
A Red Knot (left) and a Ruddy Turnstone gather with other shorebirds to feed on Atlantic horseshoe eggs along a beach in Little Creek, Delaware.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Mar 14, 2025

Many U.S. bird species seen as reaching population 'tipping point'

A report found that avian populations are decreasing in almost every habitat, including grasslands and arid regions.
The Environment Ministry has removed more than 200 species from its red list of endangered plants and fungi, with the removal largely reflecting a recovery of populations. For instance, the Cypripedium macranthos var. rebunense, which grows on Rebun Island in Hokkaido, has been moved to the "near threatened" category.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Mar 18, 2025

Japan removes 207 species from red list of endangered plants and fungi

The decrease largely reflects the recovery of populations, though 57 species were recognized as extinct.
A surgical team attend to a patient suffering from black fungus in Rajasthan, India.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 2, 2025

Once-rare fungal diseases are killing millions in an unprepared world

An estimated 6.5 million people develop invasive fungal infections each year, with about 2.5 million deaths directly caused by them.
PODCAST / deep dive
Dec 7, 2023

Feeling anxious? Wastewater, heat and Japan’s year in climate

In a year that saw Japan release 24,000 tons of wastewater (so far) from Fukushima No. 1 as the planet smashed heat records, it’s no wonder climate anxiety is on the rise. Mara Budgen joins us to break down the year in environment news, where we could see hope, and what we should be worried about....
Yasuhiro Otomo and Miku Narisawa during one of Odyssey Nature Japan's educational fishing programs.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2024

A young 3/11 survivor and her vow to protect the ocean

At 12, Miku Narisawa experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed her home. Now she is working to protect it.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan