International: Asia
Plastic piles up as covid sidelines pollution fight
12 May 2020
Green groups worry about a plastic "onslaught" in Southeast Asia as home deliveries during lockdowns add to mountains of waste.
South Korea backs $2b bailout of coal company
8 May 2020
The South Korean government is backing a $2 billion bailout of the country’s biggest coal plant manufacturer, despite promises to end coal financing.
Indonesia puts new jungle capital on hold
28 Apr 2020
The Indonesian government’s plan to relocate the country’s capital from Java to the jungles of Borneo has hit a wall.
South Korea to implement Green New Deal
17 Apr 2020
South Korea is on track to set a 2050 carbon neutrality goal and end coal financing after its ruling Democratic Party won an absolute majority in the country’s parliamentary elections on Wednesday.
Asia Pacific degradation worries UN
2 Apr 2020
A surge in Asia Pacific carbon emissions and the degradation of its environmental resources is alarming, says the UN.
Campaigners attack Japan's 'shameful' climate plans
31 Mar 2020
Japan has laid out its plans to tackle greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris agreement in the run-up to UN climate talks this year, becoming the first large economy to do so.
Southeast Asian mangrove destruction is rampant
20 Mar 2020
Southeast Asia’s aggressive development to spur economic growth are stripping the region’s coasts of mangrove forests at rates faster than anywhere.
India finally takes climate crisis seriously
19 Mar 2020
With financial losses and a heavy death toll from climate-related disasters constantly rising, India is at last focusing on the dangers of global warming.
South Korea wants Green New Deal
18 Mar 2020
South Korea's ruling party has announced its ambition for the nation to adopt a Green New Deal and deliver net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Bali does battle with plague of plastic
24 Feb 2020
Indonesia is the world’s second-largest ocean plastic polluter, after China.
Singapore joins drive to phase out fossil fuel vehicles
24 Feb 2020
Climate-vulnerable Singapore will part ways with fossil fuel vehicles within the next two decades and throw its weight behind cleaner vehicles.
Malaysia’s banks buck trend against coal
19 Feb 2020
Malaysia’s major banks are bucking a global trend toward the decarbonisation of the finance industry by continuing to finance new coal-fired power projects in Southeast Asia, a new report has found.
Mining leads to flooding in coal capital
11 Feb 2020
Major flooding from just a few hours of heavy rain in Samarinda, Indonesia’s coal-mining capital, has underscored the severity of the environmental degradation being carried out by the industry, officials say.
Japan races to build coal-burning power plants
7 Feb 2020
Just beyond the windows of Satsuki Kanno’s apartment overlooking Tokyo Bay, a behemoth from a bygone era will soon rise: a coal-burning power plant, part of a buildup of coal power that is unheard-of for an advanced economy.
Asian countries spurn and burn waste imports
3 Feb 2020
Two years after China’s ban on other countries' waste, Southeast Asian nations are struggling to deal with import surge, and are enacting bans of their own.
China, India face crticism over potent pollutants
29 Jan 2020
A new study suggests that China and India might not be living up to recent pledges to dramatically reduce emissions of a greenhouse gas nearly 13,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
City buses might moove to dung-drive
29 Jan 2020
Not in their wildest dreams did the residents of Karachi’s Cattle Colony think that the filth they were living in for more than four decades would generate wealth as well as energy.
Indonesia forest fires cost $5.2 billion
13 Dec 2019
The total damage and economic loss from forest fires in Indonesia this year amounts to at least $5.2 billion, says the World Bank.
Big Energy boosts coal in Philippines
28 Nov 2019
Coal expansion by the Philippines’ biggest energy companies could lead to the fossil fuel’s share of the energy mix growing from 52 per cent today to a whopping 75 per cent by 2025.
Vietnam has a remarkable wind-energy story
21 Nov 2019
Vietnam is rising as Southeast Asia’s new wind hero, with power capacity soon to dwarf that of all other Asean nations.
Myanmar hands over forests to oil palm producers
15 Nov 2019
Myanmar has handed out more than 400,000 hectares of oil palm concessions to 44 companies, some of the land overlapping with proposed national parks.
Coal is still king in Southeast Asia
10 Oct 2019
Not only will coal continue to be the dominant fuel source in power generation in Southeast Asia, its use will grow and peak in 2027 before slowing, according to a new study.
Can indonesia avoid a capital distaster?
6 Sep 2019
Indonesia will build a new capital city from scratch in a jungle-covered area with little to no infrastructure and it could be an environmental disaster.
Most Southeast Asia banks ignore climate crisis
27 Aug 2019
Most Southeast Asian banks are indifferent to climate change in their lending operations, a new report has found.
IKEA IDEA: Inspired firm aims to electrify a million boats
27 Aug 2019
A Singapore startup on a mission to replace a million polluting diesel-powered boats in Southeast Asia has been inspired by Ikea.
Singapore expects to pay $72b for climate peace of mind
21 Aug 2019
low-lying Singapore could spend $US72 billion or more over the next 50 to 100 years to adapt to climate change and rising sea levels, according to its prime minister.
Plastic, poverty and paradox ... the sad story of a great river
15 Aug 2019
India’s most sacred river is also its most polluted, with plastic a major culprit. Now moves are afoot to monitor the flow of rubbish and assess its link to poverty.
Southeast Asia drowning in electronic waste
7 Aug 2019
As awareness of the toxic fall-out of Southeast Asia's e-waste crisis grows, what's being done to defuse an environmental timebomb in the making?
At the garbage cafe, pay for your curry with plastic waste
31 Jul 2019
No money … no problem. Bring plastic waste and get a free curry at India's first “garbage café”.
Car craze brings gridlock and grumpiness to beaming Bhutan
26 Jul 2019
Booming car sales in Bhutan, famed for valuing Gross National Happiness over economic growth, are testing the good humour of the citizens.
Melting ice will hurt Southeast Asia
24 Jul 2019
Southeast Asia will be hardest hit by rising sea levels caused by melting and collapsing ice sheets.
Corruption and coal rule in Indonesia
16 Jul 2019
Prosecutors have indicted the head of a Indonesia's national power firm and other officials, raising hopes of a dirty energy clean-up.
Residents sue government over ‘world’s filthiest’ air
12 Jul 2019
A group of citizens is suing the Indonesian government, including the president, over the poor air quality in Jakarta, which in recent weeks has ranked as the worst in the world.
Leftover spy satellites reveal Himalayas melt
21 Jun 2019
US spy satellites that secretly kept watch over the Himalayas during the Cold War are helping researchers piece together the most detailed view yet of the region's accelerating ice loss.
Coal-dependent Japan sets neutral goal
14 Jun 2019
Heavy on tech, light on any plans to tackle its coal dependency, Japan has released its climate legislation.
Students must plant 10 trees to graduate
4 Jun 2019
The PhilippineS Senate has passed a law requiring all students to plant 10 trees in order to graduate.
Malaysia loses last male rhino
31 May 2019
The last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia has died in a nature reserve on Borneo.
TREATED LIKE TRASH: Asians send back the West's rubbish
29 May 2019
South-east Asia has begun to push back against the deluge of plastic and electronic waste from the UK, US and Australia.
What is sustainable rubber?
23 May 2019
Rubber is one of the world’s most widely used materials, but irresponsible farming methods have led to deforestation and human rights abuses as the sector has grown.
Asian voters want environmental action
18 Apr 2019
Voters across Asia are most likely to usher in governments that take a stronger stance on climate change and other environmental issues, according to surveys released in the lead-up to national elections.
Melting ice exposing bodies of Mt Everest's missing climbers
25 Mar 2019
Melting glaciers on Mount Everest have begun exposing the bodies of climbers who died on the mountain.
Look what happened when they cleaned up this rubbish beach
21 Mar 2019
Baby-turtles have officially returned to Mumbai - and it's all because one of the world’s largest beach clean-up efforts.
Japanese investors back renewables
19 Mar 2019
Major Japanese investors, including those most indebted to coal, are seeking to back large-scale renewables projects across Asia, marking a “monumental” shift that energy market analysts say is “the start of the end for thermal coal”.
Two billion people dread the day the Himalaya ice cap fails
8 Feb 2019
At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering Himalaya mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change with serious consequences for almost two billion people.
Toxic smog forces Bangkok to close schools
4 Feb 2019
Toxic smog has forced Bangkok authorities to issue an unprecedented order to shut nearly 450 schools as authorities struggled to manage a pollution crisis that has stirred widespread concern.
Bali will bill tourists for plastic pollution
1 Feb 2019
Bali has announced plans to implement a tourist tax which targets plastic pollution.
Vietnam milk boom leads to billions of cartons on beaches
12 Dec 2018
More than eight billion Tetra Paks are sold every year in Vietnam – and only a few percent are recycled. It’s having a devastating effect on the environment.
Asia's media ignores air pollution shocker
4 Dec 2018
It's a public health crisis that kills almost five million people in Asia every year. So why isn’t air pollution a bigger story?
Everest's glaciers sensitive to climate change
29 Nov 2018
It's not only glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica that are feeling the effects of a changing climate.
Gas demand spurs race to build tankers
28 Nov 2018
Busy shipyards along the coasts of South Korea, China and Japan are competing for lucrative contracts to build liquefied natural gas carriers.
Australian rainforests no longer a carbon sink – study
Fri 17 Oct 2025
Australia's tropical rainforests are among the first in the world to start emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb, scientists said Thursday, linking the "very concerning" trend to climate change.
Climate scientists and republican lawyers are taking aim at Big Tech’s emissions
Fri 17 Oct 2025
Technology companies have long been one of the biggest investors in clean energy, but new accounting rules could upend that.
In China, climate litigation starts with the state
Thu 16 Oct 2025
With thousands of dedicated courts and more than a million recent cases, environmental and climate litigation is booming in China, but it often looks different to the trend seen elsewhere.
'Not up for discussion': Brussels rejects Washington's pressure on climate rules
Mon 13 Oct 2025
In response to US demands to roll back the EU's environmental legislation, the European Commission defended its autonomous power to adopt laws.
Government told to prepare for 2C warming by 2050
Thu 16 Oct 2025
The UK should be prepared to cope with weather extremes as a result of at least 2C of global warming by 2050, independent climate advisers have said.
Renewables are a global economic engine, not a culture war threat
2 Oct 2025
Energy companies are learning this lesson faster than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Familiar tensions emerge at the Pacific Islands Forum
26 Sep 2025
With China-Taiwan rivalry, China-Western competition, and big carbon emitters at odds with the islands on climate policy, there is plenty of tension to go around.
Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica
Mon 13 Oct 2025
Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate".
Angola lowers climate ambition in blow to spirit of Paris Agreement
Tue 14 Oct 2025
Angola has scaled back its targets for reducing emissions in its new national climate plan, saying it chose “realism and implementability” over the Paris Agreement's calls for governments to set progressively more ambitious goals.
Four Brazilians to watch at COP30
Wed 15 Oct 2025
Influential Brazilians, from government figures to Indigenous activists, will take center stage during UN climate talks in the Amazon next month.
UN agency says CO2 levels hit record high last year, causing more extreme weather
Fri 17 Oct 2025
Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilisation and “turbo-charging” the Earth’s climate and causing more extreme weather.
