Tag - emissions

 
 

EMISSIONS

Japan will urge automakers to make all new passenger cars biofuel-compatible by the early 2030s, with an action plan from the industry ministry expected next summer.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 12, 2024
Japan to aim for all new cars to be biofuel-compatible in 2030s
The ministry will adopt an action plan around next summer and also plans to support the necessary renovation of gas stations.
This year is expected to be the hottest year on record, and the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service predicts it will also be the first year ever to breach 1.5 C of warming.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 12, 2024
Global warming is already on the cusp of 1.5 C, new research finds
While there is nothing symbolic about the number 1.5 in particular, every extra increment of heat risks worsening climate impacts like powerful storms and drought.
People walk past the logotype at the venue for the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 11, 2024
A guide to COP29 climate vocabulary
Here's a guide to some of the terms in play at this year's COP29 discussions.
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.
The seaside town of Shika on the Noto Peninsula, where the local power provider, Hokuriku Electric, has been fighting for a decade to restart a nuclear power plant in the town’s center.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 2, 2024
Can quake-prone Japan ever embrace nuclear energy again?
The government, its makeup in flux after the LDP lost seats this week, will soon need to make decisions that will shape Japan's future nuclear policy.
Smog in Mumbai. India and China were home to 52 of the world's top 100 polluting plants in 2022.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 30, 2024
Superpolluting coal plants power economies and the climate crisis
Analysis of coal power often miss the local contexts of the world's largest polluters and the development priorities they support.
Coral growing off Indonesia's Komodo island, located in the marine rich Coral Triangle
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Oct 27, 2024
Report details fossil fuel threat to 'Amazon of the seas'
The Coral Triangle covers waters claimed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands.
Baku Olympic Stadium, the venue of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 26, 2024
Future of U.N. climate dialogue threatened by budget shortfall
An analysis found a budget hole of at least €57 million — or nearly half of the funding needed for the U.N. climate secretariat to run annual climate negotiations.
A cyclist cools off at a fountain at Madrid Rio park during a heat wave in Madrid in July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 25, 2024
U.N. says world is on course to warm up to 3.1 degrees Celsius
Little progress has been made over the past few years despite repeated calls for stronger action plans.
A portion of the Tokyo skyline from an observatory deck at an industrial port in Kawasaki
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Oct 20, 2024
Japan scientists are tracking the big climate problem with tiny aerosols
The clear signs of climate change are everywhere, but a Japan team has found a way to trace the crisis with something that's a little less visible: aerosols.
A Tokyo Electric Power Co. employee opens a watertight door inside the Unit 7 reactor building at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, on Aug. 6.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Oct 19, 2024
Japan shifting back to nuclear to ditch coal and power AI
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the world's biggest nuclear plant, could help Japan cut carbon emissions while also powering artificial intelligence.
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.
The Goi thermal power station in Chiba Prefecture
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Oct 18, 2024
Japanese youth sue utilities over climate impact
The plaintiffs, all in their teens and 20s, say it is the first such case brought by young people in Japan.
A new report said that fires in the northern boreal forests, which span from Russia to North America, have almost tripled during the past 20 years.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Oct 18, 2024
Global forest fire carbon emissions have jumped 60% in 20 years
Forest fire severity — a measure of how much carbon is emitted per unit of area burned — is also up by nearly 50% globally.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba chairs an Asia Zero Emission Community meeting in Vientiane, Laos, on Friday.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Oct 13, 2024
Where does Shigeru Ishiba stand on the climate issue?
Ishiba appears to be charting a new course on renewable energy, especially with a nascent effort to tap Japan's bountiful geothermal potential.
The Tomakomai carbon, capture and storage test site in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, in March 2018. The true benefits of carbon removal won’t be realized until we get close to net zero emissions.
COMMENTARY
Oct 10, 2024
Geoengineering can save the planet — if we demystify it
The percentage of Americans who say they trust scientists on the environment has declined to 67% this year from 75% in 2020.
United Arab Emirates Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber speaks during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 30, 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 8, 2024
Top of the COPs: The key U.N. climate summits
The United Nations has been holding global climate summits, or COPs (Conference of the Parties), since 1995.
A solar power plant operated by Chubu Electric Power in Aichi Prefecture. Japan's significant renewable energy potential is little understood, even by its political leaders.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 7, 2024
To empower Japan, new PM has to get hot on renewables
LDP leadership candidates all toed the party line on energy policy. But now, as Ishiba deals with the reality of governing, renewable ambitions need to be stepped up.
HIF Global's Haru Oni clean hydrogen plant in Punta Arenas, Chile, last month
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / FOCUS
Oct 5, 2024
Latin America gears up for clean hydrogen boom but the road is not smooth
Government leaders expect a major boom for the region from clean hydrogen, produced using electricity from renewable sources that do not emit carbon.
Jera's liquefied natural gas fired power plant inside the company's Anegasaki Thurmal Power Station in Ichihara, Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 5, 2024
Japan firms unite to cut methane emissions from LNG supply
Twenty-two firms are joining an initiative that aims to leverage their buying power to curb methane emissions from liquefied natural gas supply chains.

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