Md. Tahmid Zami

It's no secret that climate change threatens the world's food supplies, from coffee to corn - but how about your clothes?

Researchers warned this month that worsening heat and flooding could have devastating impacts for Asia's fashion sector, including on productivity, jobs and industry earnings.

As Ripon Mondal's family try to recover from the drought that ruined their watermelon crop in central Bangladesh last year, the 19-year-old college student fears that his father's financial worries are just the tip of the iceberg.

"I can feel my father's mental distress," said Mondal.

As Bangladesh faces fiercer floods stoked by heavy rains and melting glaciers, driven by climate change, efforts are being launched to reduce the risk.

In August, monsoon rains triggered deadly flash floods in the hilly coastal region of Chattogram - and while the government and aid agencies mobilised to help those affected, the flooding killed more than 50 people and displaced more than 200,000 after their homes were badly damaged.

Along Bangladesh's southern coast, farmers threatened by the impacts of climate change are striving to boost their resilience to rising salinity in the soil and water by growing salt-tolerant crops and turning to innovative agriculture techniques.

The country's coastal regions, which make up a third of all arable land, have been hit by worsening drought, heat and water scarcity in recent years, while researchers say saline build-up is growing, spurred by various factors including rising seas.

Indian researcher Sabir Ahamed took a linguist's help to translate the term "just transition" into Bengali for his new study on the impact of coal mine closures on local people, as countries start to shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.

Ahamed settled on the somewhat poetic "kalo theke aalo", which literally means "from darkness to hope", after consulting the language expert for a phrase his target audience of coal communities in India's state of West Bengal would understand.

In fast-growing Dhaka, which is losing what is left of its green spaces and water bodies to urban development, residents are rallying to protect their environment and fight climate change.

In May, when the Bangladeshi capital's southern authority wanted to expand a key road, it cut down a few hundred trees, sparking a protest by neighbourhood youth who organised a vigil to save the remaining trees.

Battling record temperatures fuelled by climate change, a new heat officer for Bangladesh's capital is tasked with bringing relief to the city of 10 million people - and hopes to restore the lost lakes and trees of her childhood to cool off residents.

The temperature in Dhaka hit 40.6 Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) in April, the highest in decades, leading to the deaths of at least 20 people, local media reported, and an increase in hospitalisations due to waterborne diseases. 

Just a few years after Khuku Moni bought a small plot of land in southern Bangladesh and built a tin-shed house, Cyclone Amphan badly damaged it in 2020 - leaving only one room intact.

The 35-year-old said her family had been unable to move to a shelter for victims of the cyclone - her son is mentally impaired, her mother-in-law too elderly and they own livestock - leaving them no choice but to reside together in the one room.

On the sandy soil of the Padma riverbank in central Bangladesh, Salma Akhtar, 35, cultivates maize and onions to support herself and her school-age daughter.

But each year, at least once between May and October, floodwaters erupt into her village in Faridpur district, wreaking havoc on the single mother's crops and home.

As Cyclone Mocha gathered strength in the Bay of Bengal in early May, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned of a "very dangerous" storm that could have "major impacts" for hundreds of thousands of the world's most vulnerable people.

Authorities and aid agencies in Bangladesh and Myanmar evacuated about 400,000 coastal dwellers as fears grew that sprawling camps, home to Rohingya families displaced by conflict and military crackdowns, would suffer a direct hit.