Eco-Business

Over the past decade, Japan and South Korea have increasingly turned to burning wood pellets for energy, leaning on a UN loophole that dubs biomass burning as carbon neutral.

As the cost of renewables plummets and the price volatility of natural gas increases, the fossil fuel can no longer be relied on as a lower-emissions bridge fuel to clean energy, a new study finds. But subsidies are keeping the cost of gas low in some Asian markets, slowing renewables adoption.

Synchronous mass flowering is one of the most spectacular but least-understood phenomena in Southeast Asia’s tropical rainforests.

Energy from the wind and sun produced more than a tenth of global electricity for the first time last year, found a report by think tank Ember. But coal power rose in China, India, and the Philippines.

By Gillian Parker

By Robin Hicks

By Alicia Wong

By Gillian Parker and Liang Lei

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The region will present much opportunities as it plays catch-up to the global sustainable finance market, but firms should not be holding back ESG data until regulators call for them. By Naveen GV

The foreign money in China’s booming coal industry

Analysis of data from a list of coal companies worldwide has exposed the extent of international finance for Chinese coal companies. By Nora Sausmikat and Katrin Ganswindt

Asian governments must now enact and properly implement policies and regulations that will help to scale up grassroots initiatives and hold plastics producers accountable for addressing the crisis. By Jed Alegado and Clemens Kunze, Kevin Li

Southeast Asia’s power sector is set to strike out in a new direction this year, driven by energy security needs and new opportunities for collaboration as some of the world’s biggest polluters step up climate action. By Nadhilah Shani and Gabriella Ienanto

By Mary Robinson

By Tim Ha

UN News Centre

By John Mathews, Elizabeth Thurbon and Hao Tan, Sung-Young Kim

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EB Studio There are vast mineral riches lying on the ocean floor that could help to power the energy transition, but is the environmental cost of extracting them worth the risk?

Toyota will partner Japanese car-sharing service operator Park24 for a six-month experiment leasing the i-Road concept vehicle, with …

New ad takes aim at Tepco’s lack of transparency on the water contamination at Fukushima’s nuclear site. Watch the video here:

The Japanese conglomerate is developing technologies that can power smart communities, including electric buses equipped with GPS and fast-charging batteries.

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Eco-Business talks to Peter Kiernan, lead energy analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, to unpack a new landmark report from the International Energy Agency, which proposes an immediate ban on fossil fuels extraction to curb global warming.

China, Japan and Korea have just announced exciting decarbonisation targets. On the Eco-Business podcast, Dr Frank Rijsberman, director general of the Global Green Growth Institute, talks about what these targets mean for the region's development and our climate.

Pro-miners argue that deep-sea mining is essential to enable the energy transition. On the Eco-Business podcast, Sian Owen of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition argues why nature's last frontier should be protected, not exploited.

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