The Asian cosmetics industry needs to raise the bar for sustainability according to speakers at the 2nd Asia-Pacific Sustainable Cosmetics Summit held recently in Hong Kong. They say the region is lagging in many ethical and ecological areas, such as alternatives to animal testing, ecological packaging, green formulations, as well as consumer education. The growing importance of Asia to the cosmetics industry was highlighted by Sam McKay, CEO of Jurlique. In his opening keynote, he declared: “Asia has become our number one focus as a region”.

The Indonesian island of Bangka is being ravaged by tin mining which rivals Samsung and Apple use in their smartphones, says a new report from Friends of the Earth (FoE). Called Mining for Smartphones: the True Cost of Tin, the report says that tin mining has created a litany of environmental and social problems, including damaging more than 65 percent of Bangka's forest and over 70 percent of its coral reefs. Fifteen rivers are now contaminated by tin mining waste and access to clean water has become a problem for more than half of the island's population.

A slew of announcements over the past few days have done nothing to shed any light on India’s wind power market, the world’s third largest, which, to be gentle, seems to be in an endless state of flux. In a Bloomberg report on Monday a spokesman for Mytrah Energy, the country’s third largest wind developer, warned that the rate of new wind turbine installations was in a free-fall and would continue to be so due to the government’s inability to formulate a sound policy to support the industry. The country may install as little as 1,500-MW of capacity by the year ending March 31, about half what it did the previous year

For the past several days China’s official media has had a lot of focus – primarily for domestic consumption – on COP18, the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which began in Doha, the capital of Qatar, today. The contrast with Western media could not be starker. Although not entirely scientific, a quick scan of the front pages on major news sites in the US and UK found not a single reference to the Doha talks.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a plan to manage the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and establish a global carbon trading scheme after 2020. The carbon reduction plan is included in the country's commitment to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international conventions on environmental protection adopted by Vietnam. Vietnam will compile a periodical report about greenhouse gas emissions every two years which will be based on results from the soon-to-be-established National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory System.

China has been called on to strengthen its institutions and governance in climate finance if it wants to tackle climate change. An independent report for China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) by The Climate Group and the Research Centre for Climate and Energy Finance at the Chinese University of Finance, says central and local government should be setting aside at least five percent of income to tackle climate change. The report, Shaping China’s Climate Finance Policy, says not only are large sums required but the country needs create a new, high-level Climate Change & Energy Agency and an International Climate Development Agency.

The year 2012 will be a turning point for the Japan PV market as the share of the residential segment will decline from this point forward. Unique among major markets, growth in Japan has been sustained by the residential segment. With the kick of the national FiT, the market driver will turn to the non-residential segment called “Mega Solar” in Japan. The Japanese government started implementing the FIT in July this year. Between July and September, nearly 1.5-GW worth of PV projects qualified for the program. This represents 60% of the total capacity the government was expecting during the period between July 2012 and March 2013.

The growing incidence of natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific — where four of five cities globally classified as at extreme risk are located — threatens to undermine seriously rapid economic progress, calling for a much stronger focus among governments on disaster prevention, says a new study from Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank. The region has borne the brunt of the physical and economic damage of the sharp rise in natural disasters since the 1980s. Its people are four times more likely to be affected by natural disaster than in Africa and 25 times more than in Europe or North America.

A new report by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), predicts the wind sector will likely slow due to several mitigating international policy and market issues. However, if certain conditions are met and governments begin to abide by emissions pledges, the industry could also swell to the point that it is supplying about one-fifth of the world’s power by 2030. Current market factors such as China’s inability to connect its wind farms to the grid, falling carbon prices in Europe and unclear policies by the US government will likely hamper demand in major markets, the report said.