Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem.…
JAKARTA — Activists have lambasted the Indonesian government’s proposal to include gas in its clean energy transition program funded by industrialized countries. They said the inclusion of gas-fired power plants…
DRC community accuses Canadian miner of encroaching into their forests WALIKALE, Democratic Republic of Congo — For the past 10 years, a Canadian-registered company, Alphamin Bisie, has been mining tin…
With no physical form, the digital currency Bitcoin can feel all but invisible to those who don’t use it. However, its harmful climate impacts are all too real – and…
Not far up the hill, after a right turn off the main road that leads from the Zulu town of Mtubatuba in the province of KwaZulu-Natal into one of South…
Residents of a village in northeastern South Africa, displaced to make way for one of the country’s largest open-pit coal mines in 2007, are suffering from long-term collective trauma, with…
JAKARTA — Indonesia will continue building new coal-fired power plants, despite a recent $20 billion deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries to help it transition to clean energy.…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has struck a historic deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries on a $20 billion financing package to help it speed up its transition from fossil…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s plan to retire its coal-fired power plants and replace them with renewable energy by 2050 is not only feasible, but, when environmental costs are considered, will be…
MINDANAO, Philippines — In the remote mountain village of Ned, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the arrival of heavy machinery signals that development is underway on a controversial,…
In November 2021, during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the Thai delegation announced ambitious plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2065. Just…
JAKARTA — Indonesia's four largest banks handed out loans totaling $3.5 billion of direct loans to the coal industry from 2015-2021, despite their stated commitments to sustainable financial practices, a…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s program to wean itself off coal by burning it alongside progressively higher amounts of woody biomass will threaten more than a million hectares of rainforest and result…
The death knell of coal has been proclaimed, but policy loopholes in Asia allow for cofired power plants, where coal and wood are combined as fuel. Both fuels produce lots of carbon emissions, but those from wood aren’t counted.
An Australian company is threatening to sue the government of Papua New Guinea after its proposed carbon credit deal was canceled. Mayur Resources, a mining and energy company that works…
Indonesia’s planned new capital city on the island of Borneo, Nusantara, is being touted by the government as a "green" city. However, its construction may lead to a surge in…
JAKARTA — In May, Indonesians breathed a sigh of relief when President Joko Widodo announced that masks were no longer required to be worn outdoors as a guard against COVID-19.…
The imprisonment of a high-profile Vietnamese environmental activist on tax-related charges has had a chilling effect across the country's NGO community. One NGO leader, identified by the pseudonymous initials H.C.…
JAKARTA — Jakarta’s recent episode of world-beating air pollution has highlighted what activists describe as belligerent inaction by the Indonesian government to address the source of the problem, even in…
JAKARTA — Major coal-fired power plant projects in Indonesia and Bangladesh have effectively been cancelled after the Japanese government, their main funder, recently announced it would stop providing loans to…
If you can read, hear or feel this, you have power. It was as if I were being let in on a secret. Obviously, I’d already heard of global warming…
Sitting high in the hills of southwestern Ethiopia, the thick green forest of Yayu is a haven of biodiversity where Nuradin Aliyi, a third-generation wild-coffee farmer, has lived his whole…
Industrial logging, rubber, oil palm, then coal. The snowballing effects of these extractive industries have divided local communities and destroyed livelihoods in parts of Indonesian Borneo, a new study finds.…
PHNOM PENH — At last year’s COP26, the annual U.N. climate summit, Cambodian Environment Minister Say Samal voiced his support for more carbon credit projects in the country as part…
Local opposition to a planned coal mine in northern Thailand escalated in April when plaintiffs representing more than 600 villagers filed a lawsuit requesting the revocation of an environmental impact…
MUARA JAMBI, Indonesia — In a wood-plank house on the banks of the Batang Hari River, a dukun, or traditional healer, named Siti Hawa, 62, handles a grass-like plant topped…
A South African judge has declared invalid the 2016 extension of a mining right to allow Tendele Coal Mining Pty. to expand one of the country’s largest coal operations. Examining…
JAKARTA — A surge in coal prices is driving a wave of bank loans to miners in Indonesia, the world's fifth-largest coal producer and top exporter. By continuing to finance…
JAKARTA — Indonesian coal mining company Bayan Resources has challenged the government's decision to revoke its permits and effectively shrink its concession area. The legal challenge is the latest in…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s controversial plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta to Borneo has hit one of several snags that critics have long warned about: the presence…