Global Scans · Environment · Weekly Summary

WHAT'S NEXT:? Our natural environment is under ever-increasing threat. Landscape and ocean adaptation plus stabilizing biodiversity strategies will play an important role in maintaining global food productivity as climate changes. Evidence is mounting that any economic strategy that ignores carbon pollution will impose tremendous costs on the global economy and will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth over the long term. The global market for commercial "Earth observation" data is expected to hit $3.5 billion by 2024. Battles over environmental regulation could become particularly pointed in the coming years.

• [New] Beyond tourism, Japanese officials fear Beijing could escalate tensions by tightening exports of rare earth elements. The Asahi Shimbun
• [New] The highly controlled financial environment in Japan and its increasing dependence on technology-driven solutions are fostering the increased need for real-time monitoring, risk-labeling, and automated reporting systems. Precedence Research
• [New] The circular economy presents opportunities given global resource depletion, supply chain vulnerabilities, and environmental stressors. Goldman Sachs Asset Management
• [New] Vulnerabilities are starkly illustrated by current global dependencies: China accounts for ~60% of rare earth production. Goldman Sachs Asset Management
• [New] The lithium price in China could rise to over 150,000 yuan per ton - in a particularly dynamic environment even towards 200,000 yuan. GOLDINVEST.de
• [New] All investors will eventually have to wake up to the notion that the future of returns lies in investing like nature would, in regenerative and circular technologies that rethink how we produce and consume on planet Earth. ImpactAlpha
• [New] Seven of the nine planetary boundaries (the limits that make Earth habitable) are now in danger zones. ImpactAlpha
• [New] Mining asteroids could provide essential resources and reduce dependency on Earth leading to sustainable space colonization. Scholarly Commons
• [New] Establishing a permanent human presence on Mars will inevitably ripple back to Earth, accelerating technologies and expanding our understanding of human adaptability. Smart.DHgate - Trusted Buying Guides for Global Shopper
• [New] By 2025, stringent regulations and advanced monitoring systems are in place to mitigate oil spills, noise pollution, and disruption of marine habitats. FreightAmigo
• [New] China's rare earth export controls could potentially affect the timeline for global clean energy transitions, given the critical role of rare earth materials in renewable energy technologies. Discovery Alert
• [New] The latest Emissions Gap Report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) finds that new national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement have only slightly lowered projected temperature rise this century - leaving the world on track for around 2.3-2.5 °C of warming. Greenpeace International
• [New] AI will continue to improve and thus will open up even more opportunities to solve the most complicated environmental challenges of the planet in a precise, creative, and purposeful way. TheNewzAI

Last updated: 22 November 2025