Nepal Tells UN Climate Costs Are Hitting Vulnerable Countries Hardest

Nepal’s prime minister used the stage of the United Nations General Assembly to deliver a blunt message after a deadly glacier flood: rebuilding the Himalayan nation should not come with a fresh burden of debt.

Balendra Shah appealed for grant-based international assistance to help Nepal recover from the disaster, which killed at least 1,450 people. He said the scale of recovery and reconstruction is estimated at about 10% of gross domestic product, and argued that countries most exposed to climate shocks should not be pushed into borrowing to get back on their feet.

“When a climate-driven ‌disaster destroys infrastructure of ⁠a poor country, the answer cannot simply be another mega loan or a patchwork of small grants,” Mr Shah said.

“We need adequate grant-based support from the world,” he added.

He also pressed for tighter regional coordination with India and China on climate resilience, urging the creation of an urgent Himalayan mechanism that would share satellite data, track glacial lakes, improve early-warning systems and align disaster responses across borders.

More than 1,400 people died and 6,000 are still missing following the glacial floods

The Nepali ⁠leader described the flood as a stark warning about escalating climate risks, saying it washed away ⁠roads, bridges, ‌schools, homes and livelihoods—damage that has interrupted Nepal’s development progress.

“What we’re trying to convey to the world is this: these issues of climate change are not theoretical anymore,” Nepal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Shisir Khanal said during the United Nations’ high-level week.

“These are becoming real, and the frequency of such disasters are likely to happen more often over the next few years as the temperature rises, as the glaciers melt,” he said.

Nepal has contributed negligibly to the breakdown of the global climate system, Mr Khanal added.

More than 90% of Nepal’s electricity comes from hydropower, over 70% of new cars sold are electric and the nation contributes just 0.1% of global greenhouse gases.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Shisir Khanal: ‘So why should we, who have not had any contribution to this issue, only bear the burden?’

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution have described the event as a “compound crisis” in which local geological instability combined with long-term warming contributed to glacier retreat and permafrost thaw.

The collapse of a glacier near the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet Autonomous Region in late August triggered landslides and ⁠a flash flood that tore through valleys downstream.

Weeks later, search and recovery ⁠operations were still under way, with more than 6,000 people remaining missing in the area. Mr Shah said many of them may never be found.

The World Bank earlier this week made up to $170 million (€149m) available in emergency financing to help Nepal respond to the disaster and ‌begin recovery efforts.