ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

FILE - Workers are seen in Ninh Binh Power Plant, which is a coal fired power plant to supply electricity, in Ninh Binh Province in Vietnam, on Sept. 19, 2007. A plan for how Vietnam will spend $15.5 billion to transition to cleaner energy has been finalized and will be announced at the COP28 climate conference, which begins in Dubai next week. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki, File)

Vietnam’s plan for spending $15.5 billion for its clean energy transition to be announced at COP28

A plan for how Vietnam will spend $15.5 billion to transition to cleaner energy has been finalized and will be announced formally at the COP28 climate conference, which begins in Dubai next week.

Abba Usman sells granulated sugar at his shop inside a market in Abuja, Nigeria, Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. The same 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of sugar that Usman bought a week ago for $66 now costs $81. As prices rise, his customers are dwindling. (AP Photo/Chinedu Asadu)

Sugar prices are rising worldwide after bad weather tied to El Nino damaged crops in Asia

Sugar prices are soaring in many places. That’s largely due to production shortfalls in key exporters India and Thailand that are partly blamed on the El Nino. The U.N.

Lkhaebum's son, Agvaantogtokh, chooses a horse to ride as he prepares for the journey to move the family's two hundred horses to new grassland in the Munkh-Khaan region of the Sukhbaatar district, in southeast Mongolia, Saturday, May 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Mongolia’s herders fight climate change with their own adaptability and new technology

SUKHBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — For millennia, herders in Mongolia and their animals have lived and died together in the country’s vast grasslands, slowly shaping one of the last uninterrupted ecosystems of its kind.

A solar farm is seen next to Donggou village near Shijiazhuang city in the northern China's Hebei province, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. To meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), nine major Asian economies must increase the share of electricity they get from renewable energy from the current 6% to at least 50% by 2030, according to a report by a German thinktank released Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Asian economies must ramp up wind and solar power to keep global warming under 1.5C, report says

A German thinktank has reported that to prevent global warming from surpassing the critical threshold of 1.5 Celsius, major Asian economies must ensure they can get half of their total electricity from renewables by 2030.

Vinfast CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy holds up a miniature model of a Vinfast car in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sept. 29, 2023. Vietnamese automaker Vinfast has plunged right into the crowded and hypercompetitive U.S. auto market, gambling that if it can sell its electric vehicles to finicky Americans, it can succeed anywhere. So far, that gamble has yet to pay off. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh)

Vietnam’s Vinfast committed to selling EVs to US despite challenges, intense competition

Vietnamese automaker Vinfast has plunged right into the crowded and hypercompetitive U.S. auto market, gambling that if it can sell its electric vehicles to finicky Americans, it can succeed anywhere.

Meera Devi, left, accompanies her daughter Arima, 7, to her school as they walk on the flood plain of Yamuna River, in New Delhi, India, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. Their family was among those displaced by the recent floods in the Indian capital's Yamuna River. Storms, floods, fires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million displacements involving children between 2016 and 2021, according to a United Nations report. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Millions of children are displaced due to extreme weather events. Climate change will make it worse

A United Nations report says that storms, fires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million displacements involving children between 2016 and 2021.

Timothy Kinyua unloads sacks of onions from Ethiopia at an open market in Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. Restrictions on the export of the vegetable by neighboring Tanzania has led prices to triple. The prices for onions from Tanzania were the highest in seven years, Kinyua said. Some traders have adjusted by getting produce from Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Food prices are rising as countries limit exports. Blame climate change, El Nino and Russia’s war

Restrictions on food exports are spilling over from rice and wheat to other essentials. This ranges from Tanzania’s limits on shipping onions to its neighbors and Morocco’s restrictions on tomatoes to ongoing bans of some kinds of rice in Asia.

Power lines are seen near a power plant near Dengkil on the outskirt of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Sept. 11, 2023. The urgency for Southeast Asian nations to switch to clean energy to combat climate change is reinvigorating a 20-year-old plan for the region to share power.(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Climate change and the shift to cleaner energy push Southeast Asia to finally start sharing power

The urgency for Southeast Asian nations to switch to clean energy to combat climate change is breathing new life into a 20-year-old plan for the region to share power.

Vietnam detains energy policy think-tank chief, human rights group says

Vietnam has detained the director of a think tank that works on energy issues in the country. A human rights group, The 88 Project, said she was the sixth expert working on environmental and climate issues that police have taken into custody in the past two years.

Rescue workers carry a person on stretcher out of a building on fire in Hanoi, Vietnam Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Authorities said "many" people had been killed after a fire broke out in the apartment block. (Pham Trung Kien/ VNA via AP)

Fire in Vietnam’s capital kills at least 56 when it engulfs an apartment building

Authorities say a fire in a nine-story apartment building in Vietnam’s capital has killed at least 56 people, including at least four children, while an additional 37 people are being treated for injuries.

Vendor Francis Ndege measures rice at his stall in the Toi Market, Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth. Now, Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A rice shortage is sending prices soaring across the world. And things could get worse

Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sits on a scooter while visiting a factory assembling electric scooters in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday, July 20, 2023. The U.S. considers building strong economic and security ties with Vietnam a priority, Yellen said as she met with Vietnamese officials in a visit aimed at fortifying America's relations across Asia. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh)

Yellen visits Vietnam, seeking to build US ties and supply chains, and offset tensions with China

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has told top Vietnamese officials that Washington considers building strong economic and security ties with Vietnam a priority.

A farmer harvests rice crop in a paddy field on the outskirts of Guwahati, India, Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Experts are warning that rice production across South and Southeast Asia is likely to suffer with the world heading into an El Nino. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

Rice crops are being threatened by El Nino after grain supplies were disrupted by the war in Ukraine

Experts are warning that rice production across South and Southeast Asia is likely to suffer with the world heading into an El Nino.

FILE - Solar panels work near wind turbines in Quy Non, Vietnam on June 11, 2023. A human rights advocacy group says it found allegations of dozens of labor and environmental abuses by Chinese-invested companies involved in mining or processing minerals used in renewable energy. (AP Photo/Minh Hoang, File)

Rights group reports allegations of dozens of abuses in critical minerals supply chains

A human rights advocacy group says it found allegations of dozens of labor and environmental abuses by Chinese-invested companies involved in mining or processing minerals used in renewable energy.