Asia

"Deep in the thickly forested hills in its east, India last month started production at what it hopes will in five years be Asia's biggest coal mine."

"NEW DELHI — Under growing pressure to join in an international accord to battle climate change, India on Thursday announced its long-term plan to reduce its rate of planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution and to aggressively ramp up its production of solar power, hydropower and wind energy."

"Following an 18-month scuffle under the Freedom of Information Act, the Pentagon has released records detailing serious contamination on Okinawa base land slated soon for return to civilian use."

"President Xi Jinping of China will make a landmark commitment on Friday to start a national program in 2017 that will limit and put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama administration officials said on Thursday."

"The U.S. military is refusing to release a report detailing environmental contamination at Camp Kinser, a 2.7-sq.-km U.S. Marine Corps supply base near Okinawa’s capital, Naha, that is scheduled for return to civilian use."

"When the International Energy Agency reported in March that global carbon emissions had stayed flat in 2014, even as the world economy grew, the news was hailed as a turning point in the struggle to curb climate change. But more recent data about Chinese coal consumption, seen by Reuters, raise doubts about whether that historic decoupling of economic growth and carbon emissions from energy use actually occurred."

"Unprecedented rain in Japan unleashed heavy floods on Friday that tore houses from their foundations, uprooted trees and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes."

"India has taken one more step to save its three critically endangered vulture species from extinction. Last week the country finally banned large doses of diclofenac, a painkiller that is often given to cattle and buffalo but which kills any vultures that eat the carcasses of treated animals."