It's often said - but less often seen in practice - that shifting to a greener way of running the world can also help tackle social and economic inequality.

India's government is backing electric vehicles (EVs) as part of efforts to curb climate-heating fossil fuel emissions, but the business is also achieving something little-known outside the country: bringing more women into the labour-force.

From executives and government officials to assembly workers on the shop-floor, women are blazing a trail in the traditionally male-dominated auto industry - offering an opportunity to improve their rights, skills and pay.

Our India correspondents Roli Srivastava and Anuradha Nagaraj went to offices and factories to find and tell their stories.

They include Nasreen Banu, 25, the first woman from her family to study and get a job, employed as a production supervisor on scooter-maker Ather Energy's EV battery assembly line in Tamil Nadu - and smashing gender stereotypes at the same time.

"I love the job and I know how everything here works," she said. "A battery weighs 25 kg and we often hear that girls can't lift it, but I do."

But the picture isn't all rosy, as the emerging sector struggles with challenges, from e-scooters catching fire to a lack of charging points and innate bias against women taking the reins.

Over in the United States, our reporters are keeping track of the surging risks of wildfires, as worsening drought hikes the threat of forests going up in flames.

This week, the nonprofit First Street Foundation used a first-of-its-kind model to reveal that wildfires pose at least a moderate risk to more than 30 million properties across the United States - a growing number of them in states thousands of miles from fire hotspots in the west.

That also means firefighters on the frontlines of America's climate crisis are finding themselves at ever-graver danger of suffering life-threatening health problems.

In response, Congress passed a bill last Wednesday that firefighters hope will help break decades of logjam over their access to healthcare by creating a presumption that certain illnesses are caused by their jobs, making it easier for them to get medical treatment and compensation.

For readers wanting to step up their own climate action, we take a look at the growing push by big brands to put carbon footprint labels on product packaging and menus - though the jury's still out on how helpful the information will be when you're standing in the grocery-store aisle.

And is your city or town doing anything like as much as Turku in Finland, which is striving to become one of the world's first carbon-neutral cities by 2029?

Central to that plan is a not-so-glamorous sewage treatment plant, which uses large industrial heat pumps to extract energy from waste flowing from the city's drains and sewers, saving on both greenhouse gas emissions and the soaring cost of fossil fuels.

"Money smells, you know," Turku Mayor Minna Arve told journalist Alister Doyle, of earnings from the Kakolanmaki wastewater plant, which has enticed officials from as far off as China to learn about its technology.

Back with more fragrant tales from the climate frontlines next week!

Megan

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