Md. Tahmid Zami

Bangladesh's limited capacity to deal with the enormous waste generated by its textile sector may prove unsustainable as the global fashion industry faces pressure to reduce its environmental footprint. 

Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel producer, only recycles a small percentage of its textile waste, with the rest shipped abroad or left to pollute the landscape. 

The world's fashion industry not only emits a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions but also produces an increasingly unmanageable heap of textile waste.

Waste textile fibres, scraps and cutout parts - amounting to more than 92 million tonnes a year - pose a global challenge as textile production has doubled in the last two decades.

The satellite internet service Starlink is entering South Asian countries in its latest expansion, offering fast internet connections to people left offline but raising concerns about the dominance of a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

The satellite unit of Musk's SpaceX signed agreements this month with several Bangladeshi firms to set up ground stations after the head of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, invited Musk to visit and launch Starlink services.  

Growing climate risks such as extreme weather are taking a huge toll on the earnings and health of textile workers in the Global South.

Jason Judd from Cornell University's Global Labor Institute in the United States is a leading expert on the issue. His research sheds light on the damage caused by the climate crisis in countries that make the latest fashions for richer nations.

Climate change is forcing ever more Bangladeshis to emigrate to the Gulf in search of a better life but the dream often turns into a reality of abuse and exploitation endured in slave-like conditions, according to a new study.

"Vulnerable people pushed to the brink due to climate shocks take a huge gamble to pay for migration, but often end up in a situation where they face abuse," said Ritu Bharadwaj, one of the report's authors.

On the southwest coast of Bangladesh, workers armed with gas torches, laser cutters and winches break apart the carcasses of the giant, old ships that are grounded on their sandy beach.

Thirty ship-breaking yards and thousands of scrap workshops are dotted along 15 km of the coastline of Sitakunda, recycling about 38% of the world's dead ships and supplying steel scraps for Bangladesh's thriving manufacturing industry.

From cargo ships to cruise liners, bulk carriers to oil tankers, more than 109,000 ships ply the world's waters, but the fleet is ageing fast and polluting the planet.

Some 1,800 ships become obsolete each year and are sent away to be dismantled - and that number is expected to rise in the next few years, with one in two ships more than 15 years old.  

Rising energy prices are piling pressure on Bangladesh's textile sector, pushing dozens of factories to close and forcing a big rethink on how best to power the nation's No. 1 industry in terms of export and jobs.

Be it solar roof panels up top or green boilers on the factory floor, the textile sector is looking at new ways to deliver cloth more cheaply and with stronger green credentials.

With 2024 set to become the hottest year on record, growing climate extremes mean some places around the world will become uninhabitable and that could lead to mass migration. 

Some 26 million people were internally displaced by disasters such as drought or floods last year and if the climate crisis is left unchecked, about 216 million people could be internal climate migrants by 2050, according to the World Bank.

The growing costs of the climate crisis are forcing developing nations to make painful choices, compelling them to pay off debts rather than spend money on crucial services like health and education.

Only 28% of climate finance was provided as grants in 2022 to developing countries recovering from floods or shifting to clean energy, and the rest was channeled as loans, leaving them swamped by overwhelming and pressing external debt.