Know better. Do better.

How can people better understand growing climate threats, and then act on them?

In Africa, writers and novelists have started to produce climate fiction - or “cli-fi” – that aims to portray the risks and opportunities of climate change while challenging Western narratives and inspiring African readers.

The broader genre, and its largely dystopian tales, have been around a while – an Australian cousin of mine is one of a growing explosion of authors - but African writers are now joining in as climate change impacts from droughts to storms strengthen across the continent.

A new award recognises the best African cli-fi – such as short-listed author Vuyokazi Ngemntu’s tale of a girl in a drought-hit state that was once South Africa, learning to heed ancestral knowledge to restore rain.

“I believe cli-fi can be weaponised to highlight the urgency” of dealing with climate change, Ngemntu told Context correspondent Baboki Kayawe, noting she wanted to “craft a story that was ours” for all Africans.

In Nepal, those among the most at risk from worsening climate change impacts - the families of Himalayan sherpa guides, who are increasingly dying on the job as global warming makes ice unstable - are seeking another way to cope with risks: added government support.

As the threats grow, bereaved families - and those who fear for loved ones still working in the mountains - say the government should put more income from the climbing and trekking permits it sells into a pot to support families of guides lost in avalanches and other accidents.

With some sherpas talking about leaving the industry as the dangers soar, tourism ministry officials say the government is reviewing its Tourism Act and discussing a new welfare fund and insurance.

"We are sensitive to this because, without the sherpa guides, we can't promote Nepal's mountain tourism to the world," Suresh Adhikari, secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, told correspondent Mukesh Pokhrel.

In India, meanwhile, as demand for coal rises, state-run producers are tightening efforts to stop pilfering of the fuel by impoverished local communities living near the mines - the only way for many there to earn money in the absence of other jobs.

Rights activists say the crackdown raises much larger questions about how thousands of people who depend on coal mines will live as the South Asian giant slowly switches away from coal - the dirtiest fossil fuel - to more renewable energy.

"What we do is akin to picking leftover food at a rich man's feast. How is it theft?" coal scavenger Sanjay Kumar Pandit asked correspondent Roli Srivastava as he broke up large pieces of coal with a hammer.

Don't miss as well this week correspondent Alister Doyle's look at how rich-world cash is supporting poorer-world research into controversial sun-dimming technology, which supporters say could be a key tool to keep people safe from runaway climate change but critics dismiss as too risky and likely to give fossil fuel firms an alibi for inaction on cutting emissions.

See you next week,

Laurie