News
Asia swaps coal for wood fuel, but emissions still a threat
The rebuke of coal has pushed countries like South Korea and Japan to embrace the harvesting of trees to be processed into wood pellets, but environmentalists are warning that this fuel might prove as damaging as the black mineral it is replacing. Some critics focus on ...
LIEN HOANG
Creeping deforestation is threatening alpine environments across Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia was once largely covered in dense rainforests, but intense forest clearing over the past decades has denuded much of the tropical region of its forest cover. On the island of Borneo, for instance, 5.9 million hectares of trees were lost between 2004 and 2017 to logging, ...
Daniel T Cross
Forest loss in mountains of Southeast Asia accelerates at ‘shocking’ pace
Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests. These highland ecosystems support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. But new evidence suggests these havens are in grave danger. ...
Carolyn Cowan
USAID helps Vietnam's climate change fight with two new projects
Aerial view of the Ru Cha mangrove forest in Thua Thien-Hue Province. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh. USAID has launched two new conservation and forest management projects to help Vietnam’s fight against the climate crisis, the U.S. Embassy said Tuesday. The Sustainable Forest Management project, implemented by U.S.-based ...
Phan Anh
Is Thailand prepared for the carbon war?
The result of the US presidential election was clear, and means that Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20, 2021. Most observers agree that a Biden presidency will ease tensions in the US-China trade war triggered by his predecessor Donald Trump, helping stabilise the ...
Asia News Network
Study finds that carbon finance is not a one-size-fits-all solution to deforestation
Halting the pace at which we’re destroying the world’s forests for agriculture, forestry, mines, and other economic development projects is crucial to combating climate change. Carbon finance, which involves creating monetary incentives for companies and countries to invest in programs to reduce carbon emissions, is ...