Tag - carbon

 
 

CARBON

Jera's thermal power station in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture. Jera will transport low-carbon ammonia from the U.S. to its thermal power plant in Aichi Prefecture.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 18, 2026
Jera books Mitsui OSK ships to bring low-carbon ammonia to Japan
Low-carbon ammonia has been receiving greater attention around the world as governments and companies pledge to reduce emissions from fossil fuels.
Scientists say a major source of global warming has been left out of official climate plans, with indirect greenhouse gases contributing roughly 0.3 C of warming to date.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 12, 2026
Scientists urge countries to look beyond CO2 to tackle warming
A major source of global warming has been left out of official climate plans, with indirect greenhouse gases contributing roughly 0.3 C of warming to date.
A carbon capture project in Innisfail, Alberta, Canada, on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 11, 2026
Carbon dioxide removal slow to take off, alarming scientists
Currently, carbon removal efforts are only removing about 5% of global annual CO2 emissions.
Rising global temperatures, worsened by climate change, war, trade disruptions and a looming El Nino, are increasingly threatening global food production.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2026
The world’s food supply is under a quadruple attack
Heat makes it much harder to effectively grow crops, raise livestock and harvest fish, as detailed in an extensive new United Nations climate change report.
Everimpact’s Alain Retiere visits a project site in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Through a collaboration that also includes local foresters and Hitachi Systems, the team is striving to connect Japanese forestry with international carbon finance.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 31, 2026
How carbon finance could give a boost to Japan’s ailing forestry industry
The drop in value of forests has turned them into a burden, but one group hopes carbon credits could reverse that trend, while also helping the planet.
Cooling towers at the Eskom Holdings SOC Kendal coal-fired power plant in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Japan plans to provide a yen-denominated energy loan to South Africa.
JAPAN
May 7, 2026
Japan offers energy loan and ammonia technology to South Africa
The loan would be used by South Africa to extend its own energy transition aims, Japanese diplomatic officials said.
Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 1.9% to a record low of about 1.05 billion tons of carbon dioxide in fiscal 2024, the Environment Ministry said.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 14, 2026
Greenhouse gas emissions in Japan fell to record low in fiscal 2024
In fiscal 2024, emissions in Japan were down 28.7% from fiscal 2013 and the amount of carbon dioxide released slipped below 1 billion tons for the first time since then.
Kazumasa Hayakawa, president of Marine Tourism Development, checks undersea carbon dioxide concentration levels in Naha Port in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Apr 13, 2026
Eco-tourism operator in Okinawa bets on corals as carbon absorber
The company hopes to encourage visitors to think of climate change as a personal issue through combining sightseeing, environmental conservation and CO2 reduction.
Reporting requirements begin in April for about 300 to 400 companies in Japan with annual direct emissions of at least 100,000 metric tons.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 31, 2026
Japan’s top polluters face new rules as carbon market advances
Reporting requirements begin in April for about 300 to 400 companies with annual direct emissions of at least 100,000 metric tons.
Air pollution shrouds electricity towers in New Delhi, India.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 28, 2026
A decade of global climate caution is sealed by India’s wary goals
India’s new plans extend the nation’s focus on lowering emissions intensity rather than prescribe absolute cuts in greenhouse gases.
A worker produces salt via a traditional method that involves a flat pan at Shima-maasu Honpo’s plant in Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Mar 23, 2026
Okinawa salt manufacturer shifts production method in decarbonization drive
Shima-maasu Honpo has taken the bold step of building a new factory that will change its salt production method with the aim of reducing carbon emissions.
The coal industry celebrated the announced U.S. reversal on climate action, saying it would help stave off retirements of aging coal-fired power plants.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 13, 2026
Trump revokes basis of U.S. climate regulation and ends vehicle emission standards
It is the most sweeping climate policy rollback to date, after a string of regulatory cuts and other moves intended to unfetter fossil fuel development.
The Microsoft data center campus currently under construction in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, last year.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 15, 2026
Microsoft in record deal for soil carbon credits as data centers surge
The company has agreed with Indigo Carbon to buy a record 2.85 million soil carbon credits linked to regenerative agriculture in the United States.
In Japan, key stakeholders, including corporations and industry groups, are working to make ESG investment a pillar of sustainable growth despite global headwinds.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 31, 2025
Japan strives to sustain ESG investment amid global retreat
Corporations and industry groups are pushing back against the global headwinds and working to make ESG investment a pillar of sustainable growth.
In 2025, overlooked climate challenges included the warming effects of reduced pollution, stalled progress in green hydrogen and rising financing costs for renewables.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2025
Here’s the bad climate news you missed this year
The current renewables boom will need to prove those fossil plants superfluous, and quickly, if we want to stop them getting built.
Workers assemble new Nissan Leaf electric vehicles at a production facility in Sunderland, England, on Dec. 16.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2025
The positive climate news you may have missed this year
Much climate news is gloomy, but there are positive developments all the time — so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the things that have been happening.
An Eiffel tower replica statue is on display outside the United Nations COP21 climate summit in Paris in November 2015.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2025
Ten years after the Paris agreement, let’s redouble efforts
France has reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 30% compared with 1990, including 20% between 2017 and 2024.
A container ship departs the Yangshan Deep Water Port in Shanghai. U.S. President Donald Trump's trade wars only serve to drive up global emissions.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2025
Trade wars destroy the planet
If trade tensions reshape industrial structures in China and the U.S., the shift toward more energy-intensive activities will raise the weighted-average carbon intensity.
The construction site for the Greensand carbon dioxide terminal in the Port of Esbjerg, Denmark, expected to be completed in spring 2026. CCS technology is one of the tools approved by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency to curb global warming, but the technology is complex and costly.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 22, 2025
North Sea project promises to return carbon to exactly where it came from
The Greensand project off Denmark is expected to store 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, in its reservoir beneath a small, wind-swept oil platform in the North Seam.
TBM has begun preparations for an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth Market, with an offering as early as 2027 “not off the table.”
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 11, 2025
Japan carbon-capture startup’s IPO in 2027 ‘not off the table’
TBM has started preparatory work for an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth Market.

Longform

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