Tag - carbon

 
 

CARBON

Identifying a sustainable product can involve evaluating claims about emissions, plastic use, water waste and packaging recyclability.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 19, 2023
Regulators are trying to stop greenwashing before it gets worse
The range of agencies tackling dubious sustainability claims is indicative of its ambiguity and breadth.
A report by the Climate Overshoot Commission said that potentially dangerous experimental geoengineering methods — including controversial "solar radiation modification" — need to be halted until they have been researched thoroughly.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science
Sep 15, 2023
Risky geoengineering should be banned, climate group says
Cutting CO2 emissions is vital, but potentially dangerous geoengineering methods need to be halted until they have been researched thoroughly.
An industrial park in Shanxi Province, in the heart of China’s coal country
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 9, 2023
World falling dangerously short of climate goals: U.N. report card
The Paris Agreement has successfully driven climate action, but "much more is needed now on all fronts," the U.N.'s first official progress report said.
Silicon Valley's AI tycoons believe discussions on AI's current carbon footprint underplay its revolutionary potential.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 4, 2023
Tech's carbon footprint: Can AI revolutionize responsibly?
Across the globe, data servers are consuming precious natural resources for the digital world, raising the question: can AI revolutionize responsibly?
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Sep 1, 2023
Extended gasoline subsidy risks harming Japan's net-zero efforts
The politically tricky decision on ending the program could hamper the shift to EVs and efforts to reach climate change goals.
A worker cleans solar panels at a solar farm facility in Yumbo, Colombia.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Aug 30, 2023
Junk offsets are feeding wave of greenwashing, study shows
The research found that only 6% of a potential 89 million credits were linked to additional carbon reductions through preserved forests.
Mitsui, Japan's biggest ammonia importer, will conduct a joint study with three other companies on establishing a hydrogen and ammonia supply chain through the Osaka coastal industrial zone.
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2023
Trading and energy firms tie up to study Osaka fuel supply chains
Hydrogen and ammonia, which do not emit carbon dioxide when burning, are an important part of Japan's energy security strategy.
Materials derived from cabbage (left), iyokan (center) and onion by Tokyo-based startup Fabula, which is working to develop new materials that can replace concrete.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Aug 27, 2023
Japan’s scrap-and-rebuild culture faces an environmental reckoning
The nation's tendency toward new construction — rather than renovation — is coming under renewed scrutiny amid concerns over sustainability.
Solar panels at a proof-of-concept site for green hydrogen production in Vredendal, South Africa
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2023
The key to greening heavy industry
If the world’s vast ocean resources can be tapped directly to produce hydrogen, there will be no holding back the green transition.
The U.S. has 8,000 km of carbon dioxide pipelines, but will need at least 50,000 to hit climate goals, according to a carbon transport engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2023
U.S. Midwest is ground zero in the fight over carbon capture
The U.S. wants to greatly expand carbon capture and storage infrastructure, including pipelines, but many projects face opposition in the Midwest.
Surging populations of plant-eating insects are disrupting farms and the food supply chain, causing problems far more serious than sticky windshields from bug excrement.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2023
The insect apocalypse is coming to your neighborhood
Polar bears and sea turtles get most of the attention as victims of climate change, but when the bugs invade we're all going to feel it personally.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s tax breaks for clean energy will help mitigate climate change but they will not meet the 2050 net-zero carbon goal.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2023
Biden’s climate bill was too tame
U.S. President Biden and the Democratic Party's Inflation Reduction Act was too tame on fixing the climate.
As long as coal plants are still operating, it is a good idea to make them capture their carbon dioxide emissions. But the sooner that coal is replaced by renewables, the better it will be for the planet.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2023
Carbon capture and the changing economics of power generation
Carbon capture policies could unwittingly extend the life of dirtier energy sources.
Graphite, now deemed an essential mineral by the U.S., is the single biggest ingredient by weight in the batteries that go into electric vehicles and the power grid. It is also used in a variety of defense applications.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2023
Biden deploys Pentagon to beat climate change and China
A $37.5 million grant to Graphite One acts as a relaxed form of venture capital as the White House supports nascent parts of the domestic cleantech supply chain.
While the pace of deploying clean-energy solutions is faster than it has ever been, with climate change, the world overall is racing in the wrong direction.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2023
What the climate fight is really about
Now that a future of higher average global temperatures is inevitable, managing the problem well requires that we cut off the tail end of the extreme-weather distribution.
A young girl drinks water from a faucet in Bamako. At a site just 55 kilometers from Mali's capital city, pure hydrogen gas seeps from the ground like crude oil or methane.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2023
Natural hydrogen could change the world, if we understood it
We know next to nothing about how natural hydrogen is produced, let alone how to extract and transport it most efficiently.
The towers of Canary Wharf, in London, occupied by several major international banks, seen from Greenwich Park in the city
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2023
Banks voted to limit accounting of capital market emissions
The plan to keep carbon emissions linked to bond and stock sales out of banks' footprints came after wrangling over the issue delayed new standards.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2023
Kishida takes ‘global green’ initiative to the Middle East
Middle East countries are keen to diversify their economies, reducing their reliance on oil and gas for revenue. Japan hopes to assist in that transition.
An extreme heat warning in Death Valley, California, on July 15
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2023
Our civilization was built for a climate that’s vanishing
Weather disasters linked to climate change like those unfolding across the northern hemisphere will affect more and more of us.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2023
Sustainable development goals are a mission impossible
The road to a hotter, sicker and poorer planet is paved with good intentions, mushy language and too many missed goals.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.