Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to welcome millions more pilgrims to Islam's holiest sites. But as climate change heats up an already scorching region, the annual Hajj pilgrimage — much of which takes place outdoors in the desert — could prove even more daunting.

The increased number of pilgrims, with the associated surge in international air travel and infrastructure expansion, also raises sustainability concerns, even as the oil giant pursues the goal of getting half its energy from renewable resources by 2030.

Heads of state, finance leaders and activists from around the world will converge in Paris this week to seek ways to overhaul the world's development banks — like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank — and help them weather a warmer and stormier world.

While restructuring debt and reducing poverty will be part of the summit Thursday and Friday, climate will be the main driver, with representatives from developing nations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere having a prominent seat at the table.

The Biden administration was expected to propose new rules for protecting imperiled plants and animals on Wednesday that would reverse changes under former President Donald Trump that weakened the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates protections for species that are newly classified as threatened. That measure was dropped under Trump as part of a suite of changes to the species law that was encouraged by industry.

Tropical Storm Bret grew stronger on Wednesday as it took aim at islands in the eastern Caribbean that braced for torrential rainfall, landslides and flooding.

Bret had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) early Wednesday morning and was moving westward across the Atlantic Ocean at 16 mph (26 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Delfina Guiwan's heart was pounding as she snuck back to her village, now abandoned and eerily quiet, in the fertile foothills of gently erupting Mayon volcano in the northeastern Philippines.

When patrolling police spotted her, they warned that the village is off-limits because of the danger of a violent eruption at any time. Guiwan, 47, said she knew the risks but begged to stay a few minutes more to get her daughter's school uniform from their shack and feed her pigs.

Germany's chancellor pressed China to lean harder on Russia over its war in Ukraine on Tuesday, while leaders from both countries pledged to work together to combat climate change as two of the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitters.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and about half of his Cabinet hosted a delegation led by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, making his first foreign trip since becoming China's No. 2 official in March, as the two nations held high-level government consultations for the seventh time.

Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates across the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges and could lose up to 80% of their volume this century if greenhouse gas emissions aren't sharply reduced, according to a report.

The report Tuesday from Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warned that flash floods and avalanches would grow more likely in coming years, and that the availability of fresh water would be affected for nearly 2 billion people who live downstream of 12 rivers that originate in the mountains.

Multiple tornadoes swept through Mississippi overnight, killing one and injuring nearly two dozen, officials said Monday.

State emergency workers were still working with counties to assess the damage from storms in which high temperatures and hail in some areas accompanied tornadoes. The death and injuries were reported by officials in eastern Mississippi's Jasper County.

A majority of Swiss citizens have voted in favor of a bill aimed at introducing new climate measures to sharply curb the rich Alpine nation's greenhouse gas emissions.

Final results released by public broadcaster SRF showed that 59.1% of voters were in favor of the bill, while 40.9% voted against.

A jury verdict that found an Oregon power company liable for devastating wildfires — and potentially billions of dollars in damages — is highlighting the legal and financial risks utilities take if they fail to take proper precautions in a hotter, drier climate.

Utilities, especially in the U.S. West, are increasingly finding themselves in a financial bind that's partly of their own making, experts say. While updating, replacing and even burying thousands of miles of powerlines is a time-consuming and costly undertaking, the failure to start that work in earnest years ago has put them on the back foot as wildfires have grown more destructive — and lawsuits over electrical equipment sparking blazes have ballooned.