In coastal Bangladesh, women are on the frontlines of a movement resisting the Maitree Super Thermal Power Project—a massive new coal plant built, paradoxically, to fund the country’s climate adaptation efforts. Led by activists like Fatima Zannat, who works in cyclone preparedness, local women are protesting the plant’s threat to their health, livelihoods, and the vital Sundarbans mangrove forest. They argue that the plant, located near the fragile UNESCO heritage site they call their ‘mother’ for its storm protection, will poison their air and water, destroy fisheries, and force them from their land. While the government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, promotes the plant as a path to economic progress, the protesting women demand community-led solutions and an end to top-down industrial projects that exacerbate environmental injustice. Their resistance highlights a critical global dilemma where the most climate-vulnerable communities bear the immediate costs of the fossil fuel projects intended to pay for their protection.
