The local spring has long sustained residents of water-short Gunung Batur. But the country’s prolonged drought, exacerbated by an El Niño episode that is being described as the strongest on record, threats the community’s lifeline.

Indonesia’s intense, prolonged drought has exposed the remainders of Somang, which was submerged to make way for the Karian Dam.Boatman Hussein, who used to live there, now ferries passengers who want to take a look at these ghosts from their past.

Extreme weather events around us point to how ‘horrific’ the future is if we don’t drop fossil fuels, but fixing the climate crisis brings benefits to all of life.

The Philippines’ already high electricity rates have become an even bigger headache for consumers. They are rushing to install rooftop solar, fuelling a surge in solar power that stands out in the world.

Unpredictable weather is holding Indonesia back from taking greater advantage of high global demand for cacao. Prices remain high given poor harvests in the world’s leading cacao producers in West Africa – affected too by extreme weather.

ASEAN pulled off a tricky balancing act at its second summit in 2025. But it goes into 2026 with more unresolved issues – not just Myanmar’s civil war but the Thai-Cambodian border conflict that escalated in December.

Cambodia’s climate lessons are more than just the environment, but about how to live a lower-carbon life at a time when young people themselves are experiencing extreme events.

Electric tricycles are part of the sharp rise in the use of electric vehicles in the Philippines’, where they can offer a cleaner, cheaper option for mobility.

They are also reshaping news consumption, going by data from the 2025 Digital News Report.

In BRICS, developing Southeast Asian countries are diversifying ties and pushing for a greater voice for the Global South. It’s not about being anti-western or anti-US, but building a global architecture that is more representative of the world – beyond the outdated western-led one in place since World War II.

Worried about its strategic autonomy, ASEAN needs to work on its chronic weaknesses and look beyond the big powers.

Disinformation across multiple social platforms has involved manipulated photos and videos, along with use of personalities from Donald Trump to footage from events in Argentina.

Indonesia’s new government is going full steam ahead with its version of the food estate programme, a large-scale commercial approach that many critics have found to be failures across the decades. They say it is flawed at its core, takes a top-down view and dictates to indigenous communities that have an organic relationship to the land.

A major contributor to plastic litter in the world’s oceans, the Philippines has several paths laid out to curb plastic pollution. But they are littered with poor waste habits, weak implementation of laws and limited options – even basic segregation of waste is far from a norm.

The heat is here to stay and another summer isn’t far away, prompting questions about how to make communities more liveable.

Learning from this year’s heatwave, school officials and teachers are counting on joint efforts, including by students’ parents, to keep class disruptions to the minimum next summer.

Communities in different parts of the world are dealing with unfamiliar amounts of rain and rain bombs in a heated world, bringing common scenes of human suffering.

Climate Fresk is among the games on the climate crisis, bringing daunting, huge issues down to everyday ones. Games convey these issues better than long lectures and seminars, advocates say.

In a country at high risk of disasters, public messaging about natural hazards and the climate conversation do not quite reach the Deaf community. Efforts are underway to use Filipino Sign Language better, to connect with them.

We asked newsrooms in Southeast Asia about how they cover the climate. Where do their stories come from? How prepared are their staff? What realistic steps can they do to become more climate-proficient?