Nepal’s Himalayan climate crisis reaches UNGA as PM Shah Balendra Shah seeks global aid
New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) When Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah takes the podium early morning Friday (India time) to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), he intends to highlight how climate change has devastated livelihoods in low-carbon-emitting countries like his and argue that such nations deserve climate justice and compensation from the international community, according to reports.
Kathmandu has raised the issue earlier too and is set to emphasise it further during the Prime Minister’s visit, which is incidentally his first trip abroad since assuming office six months earlier.
It comes as Nepal seeks to turn the devastation caused by the August 26 Bhotekoshi floods into a broader international campaign for climate finance, loss-and-damage support and greater cooperation on Himalayan disasters, reported Kathmandu Post on Thursday.
Shah will draw international attention to the recurring loss of lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure caused by climate change, and seek greater international support for recovery, reconstruction, and climate resilience, according to a government official familiar with the preparations, it added.
Meanwhile, Minister for Foreign Affairs Shishir Khanal has underscored the need for long-term support from G-7 and the international community for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Nepal affected by recent climate-induced disasters, including Bhotekoshi, added Kantipur News.
Stating that more than $5 billion would be needed, as per the preliminary assessment, he called for giving priority to climate finance, concessional resources, disaster preparedness, multilateral financial cooperation and protection of the Himalayan region.
According to a separate report, Nepal’s border with China triggered a devastating flood this August that killed more than 1,400 people and left more than 5,000 missing.
“A recent scientific assessment found that human-caused warming likely increased the risk of the conditions that contributed to the disaster,” it added.
The country was hit by a devastating Himalayan deluge last month after an ice-rock collapse and glacier-related disaster near the Nepal-China border triggered massive flooding in the Bhotekoshi River basin.
Scientists and international experts said the disaster highlighted growing concerns that climate change is destabilising glaciers and mountain slopes across the Himalayas.
Satellite imagery and subsequent analyses suggested that glacier collapse, possibly exacerbated by unusually warm conditions and accelerating ice melt, was a key factor behind the catastrophe. The Himalayan warning cannot be ignored.
Nepal contributes a negligible share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it bears a disproportionately large burden of climate-induced disasters. That is why Kathmandu has increasingly used international platforms, from the UNGA and UN climate conferences to the Sagarmatha Sambaad dialogue process, to sound the alarm about the deteriorating ecology of the Himalayas and demand climate justice.
The high‑mountain region in Asia, primarily the Himalaya, Hindu Kush, and Tibetan Plateau, is often called the “Third Pole” as it holds the largest volume of ice and snow outside the Arctic and Antarctic, spanning about 5 million sq. km. and feeding major rivers that support close to two billion people.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, during his 2023 Nepal visit, emphasised that the “rooftops of the world are caving in” because of accelerating glacier melt.
In subsequent remarks, he reiterated that climate impacts in the Himalayas are arriving faster and with greater intensity than previously anticipated.
When these glaciers retreat, glacial lakes expand, permafrost thaws, and weather patterns become increasingly erratic, with consequences extending beyond Nepal’s borders. In September 2024, too, extreme rainfall triggered catastrophic floods and landslides across large parts of the country, taking more than 200 lives and damaging infrastructure.
Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology reported record-breaking precipitation in several districts, with rivers in the Bagmati, Narayani and Koshi basins swelling beyond historic flood levels.
Meteorologists and disaster experts caution that weather alone does not tell the entire story. The severity of the flooding was magnified by rapid urbanisation, inadequate drainage systems, encroachment on floodplains, poorly planned development and deforestation in vulnerable catchment areas.
Studies of the 2024 floods also identified unplanned construction and weak infrastructure as major factors that worsened the impact. Hydropower projects, agriculture, tourism, and water resources, though pillars of the national economy, are all vulnerable to changing climatic conditions.
