In the last three months, Nepal has witnessed two climate change-induced events. In late August, “a cascade of rocks, mud, and water” destroyed towns, roads, and bridges and killed more than 1,400 people, with 5,200 still missing. In October 2026, the country witnessed another flash flood in Gorkha district. Again, lives and property were damaged. Dozens of homes, bridges, and hundreds of people were affected. While much less in scale, the constant eruption of flash floods points to a general pattern of climate-induced changes in the region. Scientists have warned about climate change-linked extreme weather events for decades. In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that extreme weather events are going to become worse in upcoming decades. These extreme weather events are not just natural disasters but rather a result of hundreds of years of human emissions of greenhouse gases.
While humans have emitted greenhouse gases in industrial proportions for 150-plus years now, not all states are equally responsible for these historical emissions into our global ecosystem. Global South states, small and poor economies like Nepal, have an extremely small carbon footprint (per capita) in comparison to the Western states. But they have to face the brunt of such extreme weather events. It is this inequality in terms of historical responsibility and outcomes that makes the issue of climate change an international political issue. Nepal PM’s recent UN General Assembly speech highlighted some of these issues that relate to climate justice and lack of global urgency in addressing this issue. His speech also highlighted the need for a regional Himalayan initiative by Nepal, India and China, as the Himalayan-Trans Himalayan region remains one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet, prone to landslides, flash floods and cloudbursts. These ecosystems support almost 2 billion people in South Asia, thereby making the region prone to extreme weather events. The speech perfectly captures the tensions that exist in the global order between geopolitics and issues like justice. Any effective measure that aims to enhance cooperation over climate change issues must tread carefully amid the current regional and geopolitical dynamics.
Climate Justice and Global South
The major theme in Balendra Shah’s UN speech was climate justice. The call for justice reverberated throughout the speech. “Climate change cannot just remain”, according to Shah, “a beautiful phrase in a United Nations document”. Climate action involves not just post-disaster relief operations but also proactive support to the vulnerable small state who played no historical role in this disaster. Global Environment Facility and the Loss and Damage Fund remain woefully “inadequate”, according to Shah. This demand must not be seen as charity but rather as demanding responsibility and reparation from those states who have disproportionately gained from carbon emissions. He further posited that the states of South Asia “did not warm” the globe but are paying the disproportionate price for the same.
Calls for Multilateralism and Regional Initiatives: Between Geopolitics and Justice
Another major part of the speech was Nepal’s insistence on the role of multilateralism in addressing the climate change issue. The world order is currently mired in American unilateralism. Trump administration has bypassed not only allies but also most of the post-Cold War multilateral institutions. From global trade to the Paris Agreement, every multilateral arrangement is under assault. Trump administration’s abdication of global climate change initiatives goes much beyond non-participation in the Paris Agreement. The administration has withdrawn from global financial commitments towards climate change and also aims to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Domestically, the administration has further dismantled green energy initiatives like EV mandates.
Beyond the global multilateral frameworks under the UN, Nepal also called for the Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism (HCRM) that must include Himalayan states like Nepal, India and China. Such initiatives must be there that allow these states to share satellite data and critical real-time information regarding any major climate change event. The climate change impact does not limit itself to the borders of a state. Therefore, “cooperation, rather than a frontier of fragmented information” is a requirement. This call for coordination across the Himalayan international borders is an acceptance of the realities of geopolitics. Nepal is a small power that is wedged between two giants, China and India, who rival each other in the Himalayan region and beyond. The balancing act in this speech is a stark reminder that the issue of climate justice can never be disentangled from geopolitics.
Way Forward: Prospects and Challenges to Cooperation in Himalayan Region
Climate change impacts most of the Global South states in a disproportionate manner. Especially, small and Island states are most vulnerable to extreme weather events as they have less capacity. Historically, these smaller states have played almost no role in the current climate crisis, but some (like small island states) might even cease to exist. In this situation, the call for climate justice by the PM of Nepal was a much-needed call for urgent action. India and Nepal share longstanding bilateral ties. This includes bilateral cooperation on climate and environmental issues. Joint Committee on Water Resources (JCWR) is one such bilateral arrangement where both states work to mitigate the problem of floods in rivers that are shared by both. The JCWR has provisions for cooperating on flood forecasting, inundation and embankment, and management of the Kosi and Gandak rivers. Beyond that, experts from both countries constantly share data regarding major rivers and their tributaries while also working on joint hydropower projects. But complex structural dynamics between India and China make the HRCM proposal a much more difficult project to realise. And herein lies the perpetual challenge of aligning geopolitical interests with justice in international politics. Any Himalayan-wide initiative will only function when India and China come on board and agree to share satellite data with each other.
