Kyoto, Japan -- In April 2021 the United States hosted the Leaders Summit on Climate, where many of the world's most powerful countries -- and largest carbon emitters -- committed to net-zero emissions targets. Many also made pledges to divest from fossil fuels and invest in green finance. Since then, the capacity for renewable energy and sales of electric vehicles have increased. Yet progress toward system-level transformations is still moving at a snail's pace.

Meeting these targets will depend on commitments from more than just the wealthiest nations. Given the size of their populations, economies, and greenhouse gas emissions, developing economies in Southeast Asia will also play essential roles in the transition to net-zero.

In a new book, a collaborative team of researchers including Akihisa Mori from Kyoto University, focuses on the net-zero transition in Southeast Asia, applying the lessons from the Leaders Summit on Climate to these countries. The researchers wanted to understand whether financial pledges, such as fossil fuel divestment and green finance, can help financial systems overcome the tradeoff between net-zero transitions and sustainable development in emerging markets and developing economies.

Korean researchers confirmed that underground wireless communication is possible, moving beyond the terrestrial wireless communication they have primarily focused on until now. This opened up a new wireless channel for confirming the survival of buried people in the event of a collapse of an underground facility such as a mine, conducting underground rescue operations, or conducting underground military operations.

Mapping light fields and local density of optical states (LDOS) around nanostructured materials with very high spatial resolution is instrumental for advancing nano-optics, nanomaterial science, and quantum technologies, yet has remained a longstanding challenge. Recently, scientists from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in China, demonstrated an imaging modality, called scanning-exciton optical nanoscopy (SEON), to simultaneously and robustly map the light fields and LDOS around plasmonic nanostructures and photonic-crystal nanocavities with few-nanometer resolution.

Polyolefin upcycling is advancing through two key hydrogen‑based routes—hydrocracking and hydrogenolysis—which differ fundamentally in mechanism and product profiles. Despite promising lab results, scale‑up faces hurdles including catalyst deactivation, mass-/heat‑transfer limits, and analytical gaps. Researchers outline five priorities to enable real‑world, scalable plastic‑to‑alkane conversion.