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JAPAN
Mar 31, 2001

Stay with climate protocol, Mori warns U.S. in letter

Joining a barrage of criticism from around the world, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday warning against Washington's decision to pull out of the 1997 Kyoto climate change treaty, designed to stave off global warming.
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2001

Japan to keep pressing U.S. on global warming

Japan will continue to urge the United States to ratify a 1997 treaty designed to prevent global warming, even though Washington has announced plans to withdraw from the landmark pact, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2001

EU, G8 ministers vow to implement Kyoto Protocol

TRIESTE — Environment ministers from the Group of Eight major countries and the environment commissioner of the European Union ended a three-day meeting Sunday in northeastern Italy with a pledge to help implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2001

Private panel to advise on environment

A private advisory group to the prime minister will start deliberations as early as next month with the goal of charting a more environment-friendly path for Japan, government officials said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2001

Umbrella Group delays strategy session

Secret talks among top environmental negotiators from the so-called Umbrella Group of industrialized countries, originally scheduled for mid-February in New Zealand, have been postponed until some time in the latter half of March, informed sources said Sunday.
BUSINESS
Jan 9, 2001

Curb in emissions to cut economic growth: panel

A U.N. panel on climate change predicts industrialized countries' economic growth will be cut 0.2 to 2 percentage points if they reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to the levels agreed to under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, according to a study obtained by Kyodo News.
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2000

Non-EU nations circle wagons on climate

Top environmental negotiators from Japan, the United States and eight other non-European Union industrialized countries will hold secret talks in New Zealand in the middle of February, informed sources said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2000

Sinking the climate talks

The sixth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP6, collapsed in failure last weekend. In retrospect, the failure of negotiations that focused on cutting fossil-fuel emissions -- which would have a powerful impact on economic development -- and involved...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Climate meeting ends in deadlock

THE HAGUE -- U.N. climate talks collapsed at the 11th hour Saturday after the European Union and the United States failed to settle a bitter row over ways to stop global warming.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2000

Rich and poor have stake in cleaner planet

Supermarket shelves offer a choice of two light bulbs: the standard incandescent type and the compact fluorescent type. In Bangladesh, the price difference is 20 taka compared to 450 taka. The fluorescent type will last at least 10 times as long and consume one-fifth of the energy. Overall, savings from...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Costly Kansai airport plagued by pullouts, rivals, debts, sea

OSAKA -- Six years after opening, Kansai International Airport is struggling to stay above water -- literally and figuratively.
JAPAN / COP6 AGENDA
Nov 14, 2000

Negotiators face a tough time at climate talks

Beneath the blanket of obscure terms used to determine what countries will do to curb global warming lurk a few key concepts. How they are interpreted by negotiators at ongoing climate change talks in Holland will drastically alter climate change measures and the future world environment.
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2000

Science and politics expected to clash at COP6

Scientists agree that the Earth's atmosphere is getting warmer. There is consensus too that this warming will be the paramount environmental threat in the next century, as predictions see oceans swallowing beaches, tropical diseases spreading north and more species facing extinction.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2000

Industrial efforts required to cut gas emissions: NGO

Japan can meet its international pledge to fight global warming by forcing its industries to cut energy consumption, a nongovernmental organization proposed at a symposium in Tokyo on Sunday.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

EPA head schedules 'town meeting'

Environment Agency head Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tuesday that she will hold a "town meeting" in Kyoto next month to discuss with local residents Japan's role in preventing climate change and the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2000

Developing nations key to COP6

Environment Agency Director General Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tuesday that financial and technical support for developing countries in tackling global warming is the key to ensuring the success of the upcoming sixth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP6).
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2000

Hopes to retool energy policy confounded

Kyodo News One year after a disastrous nuclear accident in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan is still trying to formulate a new national energy policy.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2000

Greenhouse gas output declines

Emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases dropped 3.5 percent to the carbon equivalent of 1.336 billion tons in fiscal 1998 from the previous year, according to an Environment Agency report released Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2000

Kumagai Gumi to restructure

Kumagai Gumi Co. unveiled a restructuring plan Monday under which the debt-ridden construction firm will ask 15 creditors to forgive debts totaling 450 billion yen.
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2000

Kinder, gentler animal farms

It's funny how McDonald's -- the much-reviled little hamburger stand that grew -- has become the world's handiest barometer of social change. It is the standard-bearer, or more often the whipping boy, for economic and cultural globalization, with progress or regress thereto measured in degrees of "McDonaldization."...
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.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2000

Japan aims to rely on 'sinks' to cut CO2 emissions

The government unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would allow the country to meet more than half of its greenhouse gas emission reductions simply by maintaining and managing its forests.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2000

Critics slam government 'sinks' proposal

What is a forest?
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Japan submits carbon-sink proposal

Japan has notified a U.N. body that it is calling for forests and forestry activities to be defined in such a way that "forest management" would give nations credit toward their target cuts of carbon dioxide emissions.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2000

Law eyed on greenhouse gas target

The Environment Agency has decided to submit a bill on attaining Japan's reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions to the 150-day regular Diet session beginning in January 2002, agency sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2000

Japan plans to use forests to reduce carbon dioxide

Japan was planning to notify the U.N. conference on climate change later Tuesday that it wants to achieve a cut of between 3.2 percent and 3.7 percent in carbon dioxide emissions -- more than half of its 6 percent reduction target -- through forest absorption, government sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2000

State to review gas emissions plan

Japan will review a plan to push for allowing signatory nations to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to partially achieve mandated carbon dioxide cuts through forest absorption, government sources said Wednesday.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake