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July 11, 2026
 

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ENVIRONMENT

A Volkswagen T-Roc is loaded into a delivery tower at the German carmaker's plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, in November. Carmakers such as Volkswagen have pushed for an easing of carbon dioxide targets and fines for missing them.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 16, 2025
EU set to scrap 2035 combustion-engine ban in boon for car industry
Critics say an anticipated proposal to target reducing emissions by 90% instead risks undermining the EU’s green agenda and deterring investments in electrification.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, will reconsider the route of the planned Hokuriku Shinkansen section between Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture and Shin-Osaka Station in Osaka Prefecture.
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2025
Japan to reconsider route of planned Hokuriku Shinkansen section
The existing plan, adopted by the then LDP-Komeito coalition in 2016, has faced opposition from some due to environmental and fiscal concerns.
Unmanned Chinese electric mining trucks at an open-pit coal mine in Yimin, China, in May
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2025
China confronts the cost of dismantling the world’s biggest coal sector
Coal has been closely tied to the Communist Party’s history and to its efforts to transform China’s economy over the past decades.
Mount Fuji observed from Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture in October
JAPAN
Dec 14, 2025
Government eyes giving prefectures power to coordinate scenic landscape protection
To implement the move, the ministry plans to submit a bill revising the landscape law to next year’s ordinary session of parliament, the sources said.
Solar panels power an environmentally friendly mosque in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. Japanese companies are supporting green energy projects across Central Asia, promoting renewable power, climate resilience and sustainable development.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 10, 2025
Japan should unveil a ‘Green Master Plan’ for Central Asia
Japanese companies are driving green energy projects across Central Asia, advancing renewable power, climate resilience and sustainable development.
A coal-fired power plant in Shanghai. China’s on track for another year of record mine output.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Dec 10, 2025
Energy demand boom keeps Asia tethered to coal
Concerns over energy security and costs are trumping the climate agenda in the region’s high-growth, high-polluting economies.
The sun rises by the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris on July 1 as the city is on red alert for high temperatures. Global temperatures have been stoked ever higher by humanity's emissions of planet-heating gases, largely from fossil fuels burned on a massive scale since the industrial revolution.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 9, 2025
2025 on track to tie as second-hottest year on record, EU monitor says
Scientists warn rising temperatures, even incremental ones, are already destabilizing the climate and making storms, floods and other disasters fiercer and more frequent.
The transport ministry may delay the planned fiscal 2026 start of construction on the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension from Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture to Shin-Osaka Station in Osaka Prefecture, sources say.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2025
Hokuriku Shinkansen extension work unlikely to start in fiscal 2026, sources say
The expected delay mainly reflects a lack of consensus within the ruling coalition regarding the route for the bullet train’s extension.
Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller spray contains glyphosate, which was classified by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015 as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 6, 2025
Ghostwriters, polo shirts and the fall of a landmark pesticide study
A flagship study that declared the weedkiller Roundup posed no serious health risks has been retracted with little fanfare.
A floating solar farm in Thailand. European utilities are rethinking their green energy investments in Southeast Asia.
BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2025
European utilities rethink bets in slow-to-go-green Southeast Asia
Large green-power groups including Portugal’s EDP Renewables and Denmark’s Orsted have paused projects or withdrawn from certain countries.
Fossil fuels like propane and isobutane, commonly used for BBQs, are helping replace potent hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions and showing that practical solutions can slow global warming.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2025
BBQ gas is helping to cool a warming planet
A widening array of national-level regulations, prompted by the United Nations-backed Kigali Amendment on HFCs, are gradually pushing hydrofluorocarbons out of the market.
U.S. President Donald Trump announces his administration will ease fuel economy standards, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Wednesday. A reduction to the standards, proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, would cost Americans an additional $185 billion in fuel and increase carbon dioxide emissions by about 5%.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 4, 2025
Trump proposes easing fuel rules, in boost for automakers, despite emissions
A reduction to the standards, proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, would cost Americans more for fuel and increase carbon dioxide emissions by about 5%.
A person walks along a bridge over a drainage channel blocked by plastic waste in Accra, Ghana.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Dec 3, 2025
The world’s plastic glut is set to get much worse by 2040, study finds
Global plastic pollution will hit 280 million metric tons per year by 2040, or a dump truck’s worth every second.
People wade through the floodwater in the aftermath of flash floods at Tukka village, Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra province, Indonesia, on Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 2, 2025
‘Mischievous hands’: Indonesians blame deforestation for devastating floods
Landslides buried homes and crippled rescue and relief efforts, while floodwaters washed ashore dozens of logs.
China achieved manufacturing dominance thanks to its weaker protections for workers, communities and the environment. Now it’s exporting that model.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2025
China’s unfair labor model is going global
China’s low rights model is no longer a domestic labor issue but a systemic challenge to global labor standards, supply chain governance and fair market competition.
The outskirts of Bopolu, Liberia, in 2021. Liberia’s government signed a "carbon credit" agreement with a little-known Dubai company in 2023 that promised to protect vast tracts of forests and offset big polluters' emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 26, 2025
The case of Africa’s ‘vanishing’ carbon deals
Blue Carbon’s Africa venture highlights the complexity of delivering on carbon credits, plans that are often criticized for offering polluters a chance to “greenwash” emissions.
A Maniq man rests on a rock during a hunting expedition in Phatthalung in southern Thailand on Aug. 11.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 26, 2025
Thailand’s last hunter-gatherers seek land rights
The Maniq are facing a familiar predicament — under pressure to abandon traditional lifestyles and fighting for rights to land they have long called home.
An Indigenous man holds a sign reading "The death of the forest is the end of our lives" during what was called the "Great People's March" on the sidelines of the COP30 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Belem, Para State, Brazil on Nov. 15.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 25, 2025
Indigenous peoples’ demands got more than lip service at COP30
Indigenous peoples had unprecedented visibility at the COP30 summit, with about 3,000 in Belem and more than 400 representatives from 361 ethnic groups accredited for the event.
Tech firms including Microsoft were among those represented on a provisional U.N. list of attendees of the official COP30 summit.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 24, 2025
U.S. companies hold the line at climate talks despite Trump
With threats to factories, supply chains and the bottom line, company executives said they didn’t think now was a good time to opt out of the climate conversation.
Villagers of Tha Ton subdistrict in Thailand hold placards during a public consultation on Nov. 10, as they call for the shutdown of mines upstream and the restoration of water quality in the Kok, Sai, Ruak, Mekong and Salween rivers, amid increased rare earth and gold mining at the Kok River’s source in Myanmar, where unregulated operations may release toxic chemicals, according to new research.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 24, 2025
Toxic mines put Southeast Asia’s rivers and people at risk, study says
More than 2,400 mines — many of them illegal and unregulated — could be releasing deadly chemicals such as cyanide and mercury into river water, new research shows.
China’s demand for Soviet-style apartments shows limits to revival
Apartments built during a Soviet Union-inspired construction drive in the 1970s and 1980s tend to suffer from poor insulation and outdated plumbing, but they are seeing a revival in interest due to their attractive locations.
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Lenders seek $700 million after Japanese payments firm’s collapse
The financial failure of Osaka-based Zentoshin has left 63 creditors with claims totaling ¥115.16 billion, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.
Trump says ‘Japan’ instead of Iran at meeting in Ankara
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference during a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara on Wednesday.
World’s first fully sealed vertical-farming facility opens in Tokyo
Fully sealed units are stacked on top of each other at Plantx's vertical-farming facility in Tokyo's Koto Ward on Wednesday.
Over 70% of accommodations in Japan say they are understaffed amid tourism influx
The number of foreign visitors to Japan reached a high of 42.68 million in 2025.
‘Princess Mononoke’ comes alive in Super Kabuki staging
The “Princess Mononoke” adaptation was created under Shochiku’s Super Kabuki initiative, a modern form of kabuki with more technology in staging and open to pop culture collaborations.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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