It’s a black Monday ahead of Black Friday as failed conflict resolution at COP29 brings despondence. Where does fashion stand and what can you do?

“Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic train wreck for every country, without exception,” UN Climate Change’s executive secretary Simon Stiell said in October. This was when the organisation published its emissions forecasts at between 2.1 degree C and 2.8 degree C, expected to peak this century. The numbers are in a report titled 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report published by UN Climate Change. “Current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” said the UN Climate statement.

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“It is an intentional, complex and highly refined science to get you to buy more stuff,” says a former user experience designer at Amazon, on a Netflix documentary. The recently released Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy is beaming thoughtfully one must say, ahead of Black Friday (November 29 this year) the annual American shopping epidemic. “Hazardous,” she adds. Another shocking voice: “As a President of Adidas brand, I definitely have sins to make up for.” He is talking about conspiratorial promotions that push us towards consumerism.

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“The amount that is proposed to be mobilised is abysmally poor. It is a paltry sum. It is not something that will enable conducive climate action that is necessary for the survival of our country,” Indian negotiator Chandni Raina said when global talks at COP29 placed climate finance at just 300 billion dollars per year, that too by 2035. A large number of activists and workers had joined the summit from different platforms and countries urging rich nations to pay. They went back disillusioned.

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Approximately 7.8 million tonnes or 8 per cent of global textile waste is accumulated in India every year, according to a report by Azera Parveen Rahman on India Spend (a data journalism and public policy platform). The report, like other studies, places India among the top three countries in the world in terms of textile waste generation. Textiles contribute 13 per cent industrial production and 12 per cent exports.

The above quotes and opinions may feel disjointed in terms of the diversity of their sources, but they all add up to the same exchequer of loss. Fashion just “added” new losses this year if you consider the global rut around climate change.

The choking that much of the world feels in the “air” now is both real and metaphoric. Since it is also political and related to fuzzy legal implications if any on business, it leaves fashion on a roller coaster. Do what you will, even greenwashing it seems, will wash off.

Not to mention that some of the biggest names in global fashion refused to sit at the table at COP29. The fact that it was held at Baku in Azerbaijan, known as a “petro-state” with an abysmal human rights record made it a controversial address.

Kering and LVMH did not attend, nor did Stella McCartney who had shown New Gen materials at the Dubai edition last year. Copenhagen headquartered Global Fashion Agenda, among the leaders of sustainable dialogues on advocacy, policy, networking and supply chain modifications, did not attend either. Many activist-leaders fretted, but from far. Climate conferences across the world have multiplied in number and the COP series are usually controversial, that doesn’t help say industry leaders.

Yet not showing up—what does that say? Either that fashion is irrelevant in terms of impact, change potential or will? Or it is too unserious as a collaborative partner in linkages that must first be established by policy, politics, power, science, energy and finance?

“Fashion is currently on the sidelines but shouldn’t be,” Lewis Perkins, president and CEO of the Apparel Impact Institute told Vogue Business. “We’re intertwined with agriculture, water systems, renewable energy — these huge global challenges that everyone’s trying to solve,” he says. “And if anything, we’re great at storytelling. Instead of greenwashing, we could use those same skills to rally people around the urgency of collective action—not just for fashion, but as part of a broader movement.” he added.

To push back against the residual effect of being a sum total of disappointment, brands, platforms, media, companies and even individuals must carry their own torch.

While brands, conglomerates, activist organisations continue warring and jarring or migrate to other events like the UN’s biodiversity conference held last month or the New York Climate Week held earlier this year, fashion’s core losses seem to be mounting.

To push back against the residual effect of being a sum total of disappointment, brands, platforms, media, companies and even individuals must carry their own torch. So that by the time the proverbial light at the end of this long, dark tunnel does begin to loom closer, we can see it clearly.

Here is a to-do reflection list for individuals:

*Vote For the Vulnerable: Fashion’s most climate vulnerable manufacturing countries are India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, even Pakistan. When you create a “shopping wishlist”, make sure to check where the product was produced, by who, did it have certification, air, water, food for people who manufacture and if they were adequately paid? Was child labour involved or even invisible supply chains including exploited women who work from homes? Personal consumer responsibility must be ramped up. If you notice exploitation, you know what to do.

*Understanding “Harm” and “Damage” Beyond Oneself: What we buy, dispose of, where and how we dump the discards (not just cloth) has consequences that arch from farms to animals, from disease vulnerability to diets, from psychological consequences for a section of society to class differences. Buying and spending insidiously carry discriminative choices. One part of “protecting” oneself from climate distress is to be smart, material-savvy, conservative and cautious, health conscious and “green”, but the planet won’t survive well if we only prioritise how to mitigate personal damage. Find out about what happens when there are fires inside factories and forests, if loss of livelihood inside a fashion atelier or production unit leads to starvation, if respiratory diseases in families that live in industrial areas can be treated, ensure safety and wellbeing of those who work at fashion units. Help, however you can.

*Personal Politics: Real activists and changemakers do not make benign gestures. They are loud and clear. They ban, shun, adopt and adapt. Where does that leave you about Made in China products? Child labour, exploitation, poor wages to makers of fine luxury brands, sweatshop excesses…not to mention ambiguous political responses even during global challenges. If you still want Made in China products because they are cheap, you choose.

A community makes action easy and communication imperative. Fashion activism needs both.

*Information Influencers: Provide it and disseminate for those who don’t have access. “Influencing” is such a big part of the world’s current cultural cannon. What about disseminating credible, fact-checked information if not knowledge, including that of NGOs, law and rescue helplines for those who may be suffering from climate’s wrath but don’t have enough education or guidance to find a better footing in an increasingly threatening world.

*The Minimal Maximalists: Be a minimalist in hoarding, heaping and collecting and a maximalist in setting out on a limb to do what it takes—save a craft, recycle a piece of textile, repair things and clothes like you were addicted to therapeutic repairing. Build a Minimal-Maximal Group. A community makes action easy and communication imperative. Fashion activism needs both.