Tag - climate-change

 
 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Fluffy, low-hanging clouds generally have a cooling influence. They are big and bright, blocking and bouncing back incoming sunlight.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 30, 2025
Clouds changing as world warms, adding to climate uncertainty
Cloud behavior is notoriously complex to predict and remains a great unknown for scientists trying to accurately forecast future levels of climate change.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speaks during a news conference in Paris on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 30, 2025
Trump can't stop 'sustainability revolution': Al Gore
Gore also condemned the administration's treatment of universities and student activists, but said the tide is turning.
BYD's Neta S is presented at the 2025 Bangkok International Motor Show on Monday. China, led by BYD, has become the global EV leader, while other countries, including Japan, struggle to keep up with the shift toward electric vehicles.
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2025
In the EV race, China's BYD is leading the pack
BYD’s strong performance reflects its dominance in China’s domestic auto market, the world’s largest and most competitive for electric vehicles.
Kimio Hanawa (left), an honorary professor at Tohoku University and chair of the Meteorological Agency’s climate change advisory panel, expressed concern over rapid warming at a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 27, 2025
Without new countermeasures, Japan’s temperature could rise 4.5 C by 2100
The warmer surface temperature would lead to 17.5 more extremely hot days per year and 46.2 fewer winter days, according to the Meteorological Agency and other institutions.
Smoke and flames rise from a wildfire in Andong, South Korea, on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 26, 2025
Recent spate of wildfires in Japan and South Korea linked to climate change
A study by European researchers has concluded that the role of human-driven climate change in contributing to the wildfires was undeniable.
Demonstrators hold signs near the White House as they protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2017.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 22, 2025
What the $660 million Greenpeace verdict means for U.S. activism
Legal experts warn the decision could significantly deter other environmental groups from protesting oil and gas companies around the U.S.
Midwife Tabita dos Santos Moraes prepares cassava flour in Tefe in Brazil's Amazonas state last October. Tabita's great-grandmother taught midwifery to her aunts, who taught her mother, who taught her, starting at the age of 15.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 21, 2025
In the remote Amazon, midwives care for women stranded by drought
Years of extreme droughts in the Amazon rainforest have made river journeys to and from remote communities perilous.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (left) and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are scheduled to meet in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 21, 2025
Japan and Brazil eye mutual visits by leaders every two years
The plan is expected to be adopted during a summit between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who visits Japan next week.
Ice is seen on the Pastoruri glacier in the Peruvian Andes, Peru, in May 2024.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 21, 2025
World's glaciers are losing record ice as global temperatures climb, U.N. says
Glaciers are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record.
Climate change mitigation demands collective action from all levels of society, not just billionaires with private jets, as systemic change is necessary for meaningful progress.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2025
Billionaire’s private jet angst won’t save the world
Data center emissions in the U.S. already rival those of the domestic airline industry and are growing far quicker.
Protesters demonstrate against the Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in 2016.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 20, 2025
Jury finds Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages
The verdict was a major blow to the environmental organization.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has walked away from the banking industry’s largest climate alliance.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 20, 2025
MUFG leaves climate group as Japanese banks join Wall Street exits
MUFG follows Tokyo-based rivals Nomura Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Tourists visit a park in front of the Imperial Palace amid snowfall in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 19, 2025
Japan's record snow in February attributed to global warming
The Meteorological Agency said global warming contributed to the record snowfall in northern and eastern Japan last month.
A flooded road in the Philippines following heavy rain in July 2024
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 19, 2025
Extreme weather in 2024 forced most people to flee in 16 years
The climate damages also exacerbated a food crisis in more than a dozen countries, according to a report.
The buildings sector consumes 32% of the world's energy and contributes 34% of CO2 emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 18, 2025
'More and faster': U.N. calls to shrink buildings' carbon footprint
CO2 emissions from the building sector rose around 5% in the last decade when they should have fallen 28%, according to a new report.
Saul Luciano Lliuya in his home in Huaraz, Peru, on March 2. Lliuya is pursuing a lawsuit against German energy utility RWE, whose emissions he says have contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers, swelling a lake above his hometown to dangerous levels.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 18, 2025
Facing glacial melt-water flood risk, Peruvian farmer tests global climate law
Lawyers in the case say German energy firm RWE is responsible for 0.5% of global emissions, so should pay 0.5% of the costs for a local $3.5 million flood defense project.
Bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, located 270 kilometers north of the city of Cairns, Australia, on April 5, 2024
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science
Mar 17, 2025
From oil spills to new species: How tech reveals the ocean
New technologies are helping to reveal hidden oil spills, speed up the discovery of new species and uncover the impact of light pollution.
While climate demonstrations around the world often draw thousands of participants, in Japan such demonstrations rarely break the 100-person barrier.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 16, 2025
Japan’s youth climate activists still searching for a breakthrough
With Japan endorsing climate targets criticized as unambitious, activists are looking to education and more tailored strategies to make an impact.
The Stratos Direct Air Capture Facility, a joint venture between Occidental Petroleum and asset manager BlackRock, in Ector County, Texas, last July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2025
Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era
The lobbying strategy is to frame CCS as "an economic competitiveness and American leadership issue."
The International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland
OLYMPICS
Mar 14, 2025
Olympians make climate plea to IOC presidential candidates
Seven candidates are vying to replace Thomas Bach as president in a ballot of IOC members at Costa Navarino, Greece, on March 20.

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