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July 01, 2026
 

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ENERGY

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.
A flare stack at an liquefied natural gas plant in Russia. Ukraine has widened the scope of its attacks on Russian energy assets.
WORLD
Dec 26, 2025
Ukraine says it has hit a Russian gas processing plant and oil refinery
Ukraine has widened the scope of its attacks on Russian energy assets, targeting not only crude refineries but also pipelines and other facilities.
The government has been subsidizing electricity and gas rates intermittently since 2023, automatically reflecting them in consumers' utility bills.
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2025
Japan’s 10 major power firms to cut rates by over ¥1,000
The government has been subsidizing electricity and gas rates intermittently since 2023.
Earlier this month, the central government announced plans to introduce a system that would require third-party organizations to verify the safety of megasolar projects before construction begins.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Dec 22, 2025
Hokkaido governor sharpens stance against megasolar development
Gov. Naomichi Suzuki’s decision to toughen up on the sector comes amid growing local backlash against several projects in Hokkaido.
A U.S. military helicopter flies over the Panama-flagged Centuries, which was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 21, 2025
U.S. intercepts oil tanker off Venezuelan coast, officials say
It’s the second time in recent weeks that the United States has gone after a tanker near Venezuela amid a large U.S. military build-up in the region.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attends a summit with five Central Asian nations in Tokyo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 20, 2025
Japan sets $19 billion business target in Central Asia
Japan unveiled a five-year goal on Saturday for business projects totaling $19 billion in Central Asia as Tokyo vies for influence in the resource-rich region.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev meet in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2025
Takaichi hosts first summit with Central Asia leaders
The summit comes as Tokyo competes for influence in the resource-rich region.
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from the Sakhalin-2 project, in Chiba Prefecture in 2009
JAPAN
Dec 18, 2025
Japan hails U.S. extension of Sakhalin-2 LNG import permit
The decision allows Japanese trading giants Mitsui and Mitsubishi, which hold stakes in the project, to continue procuring LNG.
A liquid hydrogen tank at the World Hydrogen Expo in Goyang, South Korea, earlier this month.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Dec 18, 2025
Hydrogen plays part in global warming, study says
Though hydrogen has long been touted as a possible solution to the climate crisis, it could also be a small part of the problem, researchers said.
Smoke rises from chimneys at a factory in the port of Dunkirk, France, in January 2023. In the U.S., dozens of industries share a ready-made climate solution: electrification.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 17, 2025
New roadmap shows how to cut a surprisingly big source of emissions
Favorable tax treatment under U.S. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act could encourage industries to upgrade to clean technologies such as electrification.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a signing ceremony for a document on the implementation of the U.S.-Japan trade deal in Tokyo in October
BUSINESS
Dec 17, 2025
U.S. and Japan to consider energy projects that may tap $550 billion fund
The projects — which could be presented to Trump in 2026 — their specific sectors, and which U.S. states are involved are not immediately clear.
European Union flags flutter outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 16, 2025
EU imposes sanctions on oil traders with links to Russia’s shipping network
The EU has imposed 19 packages of sanctions so far, but Moscow has managed to adapt to most measures and is still selling millions of barrels of oil to India and China.
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.
Tokyo Gas President Shinichi Sasayama said the company is looking to deploy capital in assets like liquefaction plants, export terminals and the energy services sector.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 15, 2025
Tokyo Gas to invest in U.S. downstream assets to drive growth
The company is looking to deploy capital in assets like liquefaction plants, export terminals and the energy services sector.
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.
Osaka Gas President Masataka Fujiwara speaks during an interview on Dec. 2 in Osaka.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 9, 2025
Osaka Gas to focus more on LNG supply to vessels, president says
The company’s President Masataka Fujiwara said more vessels are expected to use liquefied natural gas for fuel, instead of fuel oil and gas oil, to try to reduce carbon emissions.
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.
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.
Uruguay federation reportedly cancels charter flight after World Cup exit
Uruguay's Jose Maria Gimenez reacts after the team's loss against Spain at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Friday.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
India’s gig workers pay the price for exposure to New Delhi’s hazardous air
Rohit Kushwaha waits for a customer as he delivers his last parcel of the day, in New Delhi in January. His work as a delivery driver has helped pay the family’s bills, but has had a significant impact on his health.
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Yen hits 40-year low against the dollar, breaking ¥162 level
Japan's currency broke ¥162 to the dollar on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
A French ship with close ties to Japan combines arts and sciences on the high seas
Romain Troublé, the executive director of Tara Ocean Foundation, speaks to visitors aboard the Tara during a rare port call in Tokyo in April.
In Kyushu’s far south, Senti.U sparks a culinary destination
Chef Yasuhiko Uchida was born in Saga Prefecture but has made his home in Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, since 2012.

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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