Tag - climate-change

 
 

CLIMATE CHANGE

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.
Workers monitor the water at the Sea Water Desalination Plant in Fukuoka.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Apr 9, 2026
Waste water to clean energy: Japanese engineers harness the power of osmosis
Engineers in the city of Fukuoka and their private partners have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant.
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.
The Takasago Thermal Power Plant in Takasago, Hyogo Prefecture. Japan will increase the use of coal-fired power plants to strengthen energy supply amid the Middle East energy shock.
BUSINESS
Mar 27, 2026
Japan to allow more coal-fired power to cope with energy shock
Japan is joining other nations that have shifted course to use the dirtiest fossil fuel more in the wake of of the war.
Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level ever recorded, a leading U.S. climate observatory has said.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 27, 2026
Arctic sea ice at lowest level ever this winter
This year’s maximum ice level was reached on March 15 — a week earlier than last year.
Then-Indonesian President Joko Widodo (front) addresses the media at Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port in December 2015 at a ceremony marking the launch of the first of five new floating power stations to meet the country’s growing demand for energy.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2026
Building the energy resilience ASEAN+3 needs
Strengthening energy resilience is not only an energy-policy priority; it is a macroeconomic imperative.
A volunteer moves a log as he tries to control a wildfire on Studeno Mountain above Danilovgrad, Montenegro, on Aug. 15, 2025.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 23, 2026
Planet trapped record heat in 2025: U.N.
The 11 hottest years ever recorded were all between 2015 and 2025, the United Nations’ WMO weather and climate agency confirmed.
Houses are surrounded by floodwaters after Hurricane Florence hit in Duplin County, North Carolina, in September 2018.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 14, 2026
AI ‘scientists’ help human ones answer urgent climate questions
Like millions of other people, climate scientists are finding a role for large language models in coding, communication and other parts of their workflow.
A monument to Russian Czar Alexander III on the embankment of the Siberian Ob River in Novosibirsk, Russia. Climate change is undermining Central Asia’s water supply by shrinking glaciers and rivers, prompting interest in the river as a potential source to meet the region’s needs.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2026
A Soviet-era water scheme returns as a Eurasian lifeline
The convergence of climate, economic and geopolitical crises has transformed this once-impractical proposal into an urgent policy priority.
Sanae Takaichi and Donald Trump meet in Tokyo for a summit in October. Japan’s fossil fuel investments tied to deals with the United States show Takaichi’s government favoring legacy energy over renewables.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 8, 2026
Takaichi and Trump are natural fossil fuel buddies — or are they?
More than a third of Southeast Asia’s coal power finance between 2016 and 2024 came from Japanese banks, and more than a fifth of gas.
Scientists say the last 11 years have been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 topping the podium and 2023 in second place.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 7, 2026
‘Significant’ acceleration of global warming since 2015: study
Scientists say the last 11 years have been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 topping the podium and 2023 in second place.
Across the Global South, a growing crisis of overheating cities is impacting the health and livelihoods of more than 1 billion people living in informal settlements, a figure expected to increase sevenfold by 2050, a new report said.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 6, 2026
Extreme heat hurts work, health and sleep in Africa slums, report says
A growing crisis of overheating cities is impacting the health and livelihoods of more than 1 billion people living in informal settlements.
Cherry blossoms are expected to bloom earlier than usual this year, with flowering forecast to begin in Nagoya on March 17 and in Tokyo on March 19, according to Japan Meteorological Corp.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2026
Cherry blossom season set to begin up to a week earlier than usual
Somei Yoshino cherry trees are expected to begin flowering on March 17 in Nagoya, before those in the Kanto-Koshin, Shikoku and Kyushu regions start blooming.
The front page of The Japan Times on March 3, 1976, carries the news of a terrorist attack in Sapporo.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Mar 6, 2026
Japan Times 1976: Bomb explosion in Sapporo claims 2 lives, injures 85
A note left after the terrorist attack at a government building cited “imperialists” as the target.
A shed submerged by floodwaters. Insured losses from natural catastrophes globally reached $107 billion last year, according to reinsurer Swiss Re.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2026
Insurers urge Australia to launch $21 billion flood defense fund
The funding would be used on tasks including adding more flood-protection infrastructure like dams or levees, and also for a property buyback program.
Despite claims that solar growth has peaked, strong demand and technology adoption suggest the boom will continue, though silver use in panels may eventually decline.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2026
Silver’s surge suggests a brighter future for solar
Much of the recent run-up can be explained by a shift toward TOPCon, a new solar technology that requires more silver.
Alejandro M. Lopez brings his Altadena wildfire experience to Tokyo, where his exhibition explores trauma, renewal and climate change.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2026
A California wildfire survivor turns devastation into art with a message on the climate crisis
Alejandro M. Lopez channels the Altadena blaze into paintings that trace trauma, melancholy and renewal in Tokyo.
A Yatsurugi Shrine worshipper (center) stands on the frozen surface of Lake Suwa, before measuring the ice, in Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, on Jan. 29.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 18, 2026
Japan’s ‘godless’ lake warns of creeping climate change
Climate change is disrupting a phenomenon that can occur at Lake Suwa in Nagano Prefecture when the surface freezes, which is traditionally believed to show the presence of a god.
Deadly climate disasters are rising in South and Southeast Asia as adaptation funding and institutional capacity lag, highlighting the need for stronger regional and global coordination and support.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2026
Asia needs to play smarter to win climate dollars
Climate finance is supposed to fill the gap left by the industrialized world’s withdrawal from its responsibility to subsidize those suffering because of atmospheric carbon.

Longform

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