Why Bangladesh needs stronger environmental journalism

Imagine a baby taking its first breath in Dhaka today. From that very moment, the child is exposed to one of the city's most serious but invisible threats: air pollution. According to the latest World Air Quality Report by IQAir, Bangladesh's annual average level of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is more than 13 times higher than the World Health Organization's recommended safety limit.

In a densely populated city like Dhaka, children grow up breathing air filled with microscopic particles that can enter deep into their lungs and bloodstream. Health experts warn that prolonged exposure increases the risk of respiratory infections, asthma, heart disease, and impaired lung development. For many children, the consequences begin long before they understand the dangers around them.

This alarming reality highlights the urgent need for stronger environmental action to secure a safer future for the next generation. Thus, on 5 June, the communities across the world observe World Environment Day for inaugurating some actions to safeguard the climate.

This year the world observes World Environment Day under the theme "Climate Action" and calls on all of us to act with greater urgency. Experts warn that Bangladesh faces heatwaves, drought conditions, and flash flood risk from an emerging El Niño, which means climate is visibly, measurably changing. So, the United Nations Environment Programme's call "Now for Climate" carries particular urgency here, where nature's signals are not mere a warning but the daily realities faced by the lives of millions.

In the summer of 2025 alone, nearly 60 million Bangladeshis endured "risky heat days", temperatures hotter than 90% of days recorded between 1991 and 2020. Dhaka, one of the world's most densely populated megacities, recorded 52 such days in a single season. An international study by World Weather Attribution found that Bangladesh experienced 44 extra days of extreme heat between May 2024 and May 2025 due to human-caused climate change alone. Again, from the last part of March 2026, Bangladesh is facing hotter days.

Beyond heat, Bangladesh confronts a full spectrum of climate-induced crises: accelerating river erosion displacing riverside communities, salinity creeping deep into coastal farmland, air pollution in Dhaka making the city top among the world's most polluted cities, biodiversity loss in the Sundarbans and wetland ecosystems, and the relentless threat of more frequent and intense cyclones. The World Bank study found that 25 million workdays were lost in Bangladesh in 2024 alone due to heat-related physical and mental health issues. The country ranked 13th in German watch's Long-Term Climate Risk Index, released at COP30, a strong measure of decades of climate vulnerability.

In the face of these mounting crises, the role of environmental journalism and the journalists, editors, and media institutions who translate scientific data into public understanding, hold governments accountable, and amplify the voices of affected communities have never been more significant. Yet in Bangladesh, that journalism remains under-resourced, under-trained, and structurally constrained. This World Environment Day, that gap demands examination.

The evolution of environmental journalism

The history of environmental journalism mirrors the global climate movement. When the UN convened the Stockholm Conference in 1972, environmental reporting was a niche pursuit, with planetary destabilization barely registering in mainstream newsrooms. The 1992 Rio Earth Summit marked a turning point, establishing climate change as a distinct diplomatic category and prompting sustained media coverage. The Kyoto Protocol deepened attention, though scientific complexity challenged undertrained journalists.

The 2015 Paris Agreement transformed both climate policy and journalism. A measurable temperature target lifted climate stories from the environment desk to the front page. By COP29 in 2024, economic questions rivaled ecological ones. Today, with COP31 approaching, climate change is a present reality, not a future threat. From the warmest year on record 2024, climate journalism now demands explanation, investigation, and accountability especially in newsrooms across Bangladesh.

Environmental journalism in Bangladesh

Leading outlets have substantially expanded environmental coverage in Bangladesh. The Daily Star has broken stories on coastal salinity and flooding, Prothom Alo has investigated river pollution, and The Business Standard has published in-depth reports on air quality, renewable energy, and climate finance. Together, they have moved environmental concerns from the margins to the center of national debate.

Reporting is shifting from purely event-driven coverage toward thematic, investigative, and solutions-oriented journalism. However, SM Humayun Kabir (2025), alongside the Hoque & Tarannum framework (2021), found that environmental journalism remains "under-resourced and surface-level." Coverage peaks during crises but fades rapidly.

Yet journalism's achievements are undeniable. Coverage of Buriganga River pollution sustained public pressure and catalyzed court interventions. When Cyclone Mocha struck in 2023, early media coverage coordinated relief and amplified Rohingya voices. Longer-form storytelling has humanized statistics  documenting coastal women walking hours for freshwater, displaced northern farmers, and children breathing hazardous air in Narayanganj. Internationally, reporting by Mongabay, Yale Environment 360, and The Guardian has strengthened Bangladesh's position in climate finance negotiations by documenting its adaptation needs.

Challenges: Why environment journalism remains difficult

Our newsrooms remain chronically under-resourced for specialist environmental coverage. Journalists who cover the environment are frequently required to cover other beats simultaneously. Also, the lack of training for journalists hampers the quality.

Political and commercial pressures shape coverage. Politicians with interests in carbon-intensive industries influence the media landscape. So, the broader pattern of press freedom constraints in Bangladesh that inevitably affect environmental reporting.

Data access poses another systematic challenge. Journalists who want to base environmental stories on primary data often find themselves either dependent on government releases or lacking the technical skills to obtain and interpret data independently.

Community representation remains weak. The people most directly affected by environmental degradation are coastal communities, char-land farmers, indigenous groups in the Hill Tracts, urban slum-dwellers breathing polluted air; their voices, their expertise about local environments, and their strategies for adaptation rarely reach national audiences. This is not merely an equity problem: it is an epistemological one.

Environmental journalism education: Building the next generation

Globally, institutions like Unesco and the Reuters have invested seriously in environmental journalism education. Bangladesh is still catching up. Universities offer journalism programmes, but specialised training in climate science, environmental law, or data journalism remains rare.

Scholars argue that Bangladeshi curricula must incorporate climate communication, disaster reporting, and environmental governance. Better-trained journalists produce better-informed citizens  and a society that truly understands its environmental risks is far better equipped to face them.

Hope for the future

The path to stronger environmental journalism in Bangladesh is not mysterious; it requires investment, training, and institutional commitment. Newsrooms need dedicated environmental desks, staffed by reporters whose full-time responsibility is covering climate, pollution, biodiversity, and environmental governance. They need editors who understand the science well enough to assign, develop, and fact-check complex environmental stories. These are not extravagant demands: they are basic requirements for covering the most consequential story of our time.

Universities need to build environmental journalism curricula not merely adding a climate module to an existing course but creating interdisciplinary programs in which journalism students work alongside environmental science students, learn from climate researchers, and practice the skills of data journalism and solutions reporting. The communities of coastal Bangladesh have developed sophisticated local knowledge about mangrove restoration, saline-tolerant agriculture, and early warning systems. That knowledge documented and disseminated by good journalism, has value not only for public awareness but for policy. This collaboration between journalists and scientists improves both the accuracy and the depth of environmental reporting.

World Environment Day 2026 asks what signals we choose to send in response to the signals the Earth is sending. For Bangladesh, those signals from the Earth are unmistakable: in the heat that bakes the cities, in the rivers that eat the land, in the seas that salt the soil and swallow the coast. The signals that environmental journalism sends back matter enormously. They shape how citizens understand the crisis they are living through, how policymakers are held to account for their decisions, how communities learn from one another's resilience, and how Bangladesh tells its own story to the world.

Historically, early development paradigms often explained that nature was static, infinite, and disconnected from human activity; it was widely taught that the environment would perpetually absorb pollution and provide resources without consequence, meaning development projects could never harm the environment.

Modern climate realities in Dhaka and coastal Bangladesh have entirely shattered this myth. A country that emits less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions but ranks among the world's most climate-vulnerable nations, has a powerful moral claim on international attention and climate finance. But to voice that claim effectively to the international community, Bangladesh needs a press that is rigorously trained, independently resourced, and theoretically grounded in solid climate science.

So, investing in environmental journalism is one of the clearest signals this country can send to the future to make a change.

The author is an assistant professor of Mass Communication and Journalism at Jagannath University.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.