Md. Tahmid Zami

The fashion industry is responsible for up to 8% of the world's planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, according to U.N. figures, which many of its companies have promised to tackle with targets to reach net zero by 2050 or sooner.

Yet researchers, companies and industry insiders say that little has been done to push this along in their supply chains in major textile-producing countries like Bangladesh, India and Cambodia.

About a quarter of the world's bricks are produced in South Asia to build houses and factories in the region as more people move to urban areas in search of work.

But brick-making contributes to air pollution and emits greenhouse gases, while attempts to reduce emissions have faltered.

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.  

Heatwaves, floods and cyclones are increasing in the Asia-Pacific region as the climate crisis unfolds, forcing the Red Cross to come up with new, long-term fixes that better meet the challenges of extreme weather.

Bangladesh has lost an average of $3 billion per year due to the impact of climate change during the last three decades, according to the environmental non-profit Germanwatch.

It is day 137 of a round-the-clock sit-in to save Dhaka's Panthakunja Park - aka "the pedestrians' oasis". Hundreds of trees have already gone and more are under threat due to plans for an elevated expressway across the Bangladeshi capital.

Green spaces in the city have shrunk from 17% in 1989 to 2% in 2020, driven by Dhaka's rapid urbanisation, yet temperatures are on the rise - making shade a priority.

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.

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.