Roli Srivastava

In the scenic Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, cleaning squads patrol forest and mountain trails on the lookout for litter left behind by tourists, removing empty water bottles and crisp packets stuck in bushes and trees.

The money to run these teams comes from a tourist tax that Bhutan has levied for decades to avoid over-tourism and preserve its status as South Asia's only carbon-negative country - meaning it absorbs more emissions than it produces annually.

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.

Riding a red electric scooter on country roads in eastern India, Sanjulata Mahanta has become something of a poster girl for millet since she stunned fellow villagers by planting the hardy grain - and making a profit - three years ago.

"People laughed at me and said I was growing grass," Mahanta, 35, said on a humid morning as farmers from Kaurikala village in Odisha state gathered under a tree for a millet workshop mixing history, cookery and climate change adaptation.

Women will bear the brunt of extreme heat as more frequent heatwaves on a warming planet pose a growing threat to their work, earnings and lives, researchers have warned.

The impacts of rising heat are disproportionately dangerous and costly to women - be it at home or on the job - according to a report titled 'The Scorching Divide' by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock).

India's drive to ramp up coal output to meet growing energy demand is faltering due to banks' reluctance to finance newly auctioned mines, though most lenders remain far from ditching fossil fuels for good, analysts and officials said.

Of the 87 mines auctioned to private companies in the past three years in a push called "Unleashing Coal" - part of India's energy self-sufficiency plans - only four are operating, with the rest awaiting financing, a federal coal ministry official said, asking not to be named.

As a child, Nandha Kishore S.R. was fascinated by the wind turbine installed at a wind energy institute near his home in southern India and dreamt of one day operating such equipment.

Years later, the engineering graduate trained at the same institute in Chennai and started working in the sector, first assessing India's wind energy potential, then calculating power production and now checking site suitability for wind farms.

Indonesian fisherman Radith Giantiano is still suffering the fallout of tropical cyclone Seroja two years after it devastated his coastal community with heavy rains, floods and landslides.

The 30-year-old from Kupang in the eastern province of East Nusa Tenggara has since seen his fishing catch shrink after the cyclone damaged coral reefs, sunk boats and destroyed homes. Seroja - one of the most powerful cyclones to ever hit Indonesia - killed more than 160 people nationwide in April 2021.

Indian poet Amandeep Singh has turned for inspiration to the peace of the mountains in the past, but the idea for his latest poem was born at a workshop on climate change in busy Mumbai.

His poem - 'She Came Back' - which references a drying lake, solar panels, and the girl he loves riding an electric scooter - was the result of a unique collaboration between poets and researchers to create new works on love - and climate change.

Farmer Ganpatram Bheda, 66, fears he will lose his two acres of land in northwest India after scarce rainfall and extreme cold in recent years hit crop yields, trapping him in a web of loans with little help from the state to overcome his financial woes.

As small-scale Indian farmers like Bheda grapple with growing climate uncertainties, researchers this week called for a robust rural jobs scheme, crop insurance and mental healthcare to ease growing distress and suicide in agrarian communities.

As a child, Sanjay Shashikant Kerkar was happiest playing with screwdrivers and pliers, or burying his head in open car bonnets at a friend's garage, influenced by his father's job as a machine operator at a textile mill in central Mumbai.

Kerkar, 47, is now a long-serving mechanic with Mumbai's public transport operator where he repaired diesel buses until four years ago, when he was trained in the daily upkeep of the new electric buses his firm had procured.