A rethinking of development strategy and planning beyond the traditional economic- and city-centric world is essential, especially in the Global South.
Europe might have done better to conduct a more informal, consultative approach involving all stakeholders instead of a unilateral ban on palm oil imports.
In Southeast Asia, rampant corruption has fueled an illegal trade in plastic waste, a source of much pollution through dumping, leaching and burning.
Asian leaders should prioritize climate initiatives before environmental distress raises the costs of action and the prospects of political and economic crises.
Acute respiratory distress syndrome, which has long been linked to polluted air, has been a major cause of Covid-19-related deaths.
The unprecedented Australian bushfire crisis has been a wake-up call on climate change, highlighting an underlying threat to the country: the lack of water resources.
Governments worldwide will increasingly have to turn to their armed forces to deal with climate-related disasters, requiring new ways of thinking.
Vasuki Shastry, Associate Asia Fellow of Chatham House in London, offers lessons from the past year and considers what they may portend at the beginning of a new decade.
Climate change is severely affecting smallholder farmers in Africa, who represent the majority of the agriculture sector across the continent.
Since the Paris Agreement was signed, the world continues to experience extremes of climate change as signatories to the accord struggle to meet their climate goals.
As an archipelagic nation spread over 17,000 islands, Indonesia faces numerous challenges in addressing water supply and sanitation issues.
This month, G20 leaders will endorse guiding principles for “quality infrastructure investment”, a priority for Japan. China’s support of these principles signals a willingness to address criticism of its Belt and Road Initiative. China and Japan, rivals in delivering high-speed rail, appear open to collaborating on projects that would meet high sustainability standards, writes Motoko Aizawa, President of the Observatory for Sustainable Infrastructure, who for 12 years headed the Policy and Standards Unit in the Environmental and Social Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Deforestation lets countries develop economically through commodity production, mining, and infrastructure-building, but makes many previously forested areas unsuitable for people and animals. The solution to this isn’t reforestation—it’s natural regeneration. Nature is our best ally and business partner.
Beyond climate change, there’s the Anthropocene. Humans have altered the planet to such an extent that it has entered a new age. The Anthropocene and the unprecedented changes it brings call for a new way to think about how humans relate to the planet.
Growing media and societal attention on environmental issues has prompted researchers to examine factors that contribute to making companies greener. New research has found that corporations with more women in their leadership teams are less likely to be accused of breaching environmental law.
Air pollution has countless victims—nearly nine out of ten people across the globe breathe polluted air, according to the World Health Organization. New research suggests that it even reaches the unborn, moving from a mother’s lungs to the placenta and fetus. Not only does it cause health and economic ill-effects, but it also impacts human cognition.
The global economy is currently organized in an environmentally damaging way: goods are produced, used, and discarded. The shared economy and the platform economy offer alternatives, but not solutions. The key to a more sustainable economy could lie in the combination of the two.
Many parts of Asia are affected by high levels of air pollution. The continent is home to some of the most polluted megacities in the world, including Beijing and Shanghai in China, and Delhi and Kolkata in India. While these places suffer all year round, several countries in Southeast Asia face a unique air pollution problem that is seasonal, but no less dire.
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