Nepal is calling for $20 million in compensation and what its leaders describe as “climate justice” following floods that killed more than 1,300 people and left over 5,000 missing across the country and China’s Tibet region. The disaster struck on August 26 when part of a mountain glacier collapsed, sending water and mud pouring into Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot regions and across the border into Tibet.
Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal made the country’s position clear last week. “We are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create,” he said. “Support for Nepal should not be seen from an angle of aid or charity, but should be seen from the perspective of climate justice,” he told AFP.
President Ramchandra Paudel repeated the appeal Monday during an address to the nation. “I make a heartfelt appeal to the international community not only to listen to the voices of ecologically vulnerable countries, including Nepal, but also to take concrete and effective steps to ensure climate justice for them,” he said.
Nepal’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Environment sent a joint letter to the United Nations requesting $20 million from the Loss and Damage Fund, which the UN created in 2022 under the 2015 Paris Agreement to help countries cope with climate-related disasters. The fund currently faces a $2.8 billion funding gap as it prepares to approve its first recovery projects.
A Small Emitter Facing Outsized Risk
Nepal produces less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions and gets most of its electricity from renewable sources. Its location in the Himalayas still leaves it exposed to some of the most severe effects of a warming climate.
Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which stretches across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, lost ice 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 than in the decade before. Nepal’s own glaciers, positioned between two of the world’s largest carbon emitters, India and China, have lost close to a third of their ice volume over roughly 30 years, according to a 2023 United Nations report.
Tanuja Pandey, a Nepal-based climate activist and lawyer, said the flooding has deepened a frustration that has built for years. “People here feel the world often pays attention to Nepal only when a climate disaster becomes impossible to ignore,” she told Al Jazeera. “It is deeply painful to people here that global attention intensifies when headlines report thousands of people dead or missing and in the end, their suffering does not generate any urgency to fight climate change.”
Shreya KC, a 28-year-old climate activist from Solukhumbu district in eastern Nepal, home to Mount Everest, said the glacial collapse has changed how people in her region think about their own safety. “After the glacial collapse happened two weeks ago, people in my region have realised that this can now happen anywhere in Nepal since the Himalayas are warming and glaciers are melting faster,” she told Al Jazeera. She has worked on clean hydropower and forestry projects in the country and said the responsibility for the current crisis lies elsewhere. “Because of other countries, today Nepalis are the ones most impacted by climate change. So people want justice.”
Whether “Climate Justice” Holds Up as a Legal Claim
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority estimates property, housing and infrastructure losses from the floods at roughly $2.56 billion, an amount far larger than the $20 million Nepal has formally requested.
Joyeeta Gupta, a professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the University of Amsterdam, said turning the concept of climate justice into an actual compensation claim is not straightforward. The United Nations defines climate justice as the moral and ethical principle addressing the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and future generations. Gupta offered her own definition: “a system of justice where others’ perspectives are taken into account, and no harm is caused to others.”
“Nepal is a country that has very low emissions but is facing the brunt of climate issues which it never created,” she said. “That is reason enough for Nepal to claim climate justice.”
The practical path to compensation is less certain. Gupta said international discussions before 1990 focused on the idea that large emitters should compensate countries harmed by their emissions, but the term “compensation” largely disappeared from climate treaties after that period, replaced by discussions about assistance for developing countries.
A July 2025 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice found that all nations carry binding legal duties under international law to prevent significant climate harm. The opinion also states that countries breaching their climate obligations can be required to make full reparations, including financial compensation, to nations harmed by their actions. The ICJ opinion is not legally binding, but Gupta said it strengthens Nepal’s international appeal.
A Prime Minister Heads to the UN
Nepal’s prime minister, Balendra Shah, a rapper-turned-politician, is scheduled to travel to New York on September 22 and address the UN General Assembly’s 81st session on September 24. Nepal’s climate justice appeal is expected to be central to his remarks.
Shreya KC said international meetings carry some weight, but Nepal’s immediate need is financial. “So much of our money allotted for healthcare, education and to transition into a more developed nation is now being spent on fighting climate change,” she said. She argued that countries in the global north responsible for higher emissions need to contribute more to the Loss and Damage Fund, and that money from the fund should reach vulnerable communities as compensation rather than as a loan.
Pandey pointed out that this is not Nepal’s first climate disaster and said the government that took power in March, following the country’s Gen Z protests last year, has not made climate a budget priority. She said Nepal’s international appeals need to be matched by changes to its own development approach. “There is no climate justice without internal justice within the country itself,” she said. “I hope that even in our development, partners and investors stop treating climate resilience as an optional addition to development in Nepal just because we are economically vulnerable. Investing in Nepal without investing in sustainability is simply a bad investment.”
Mourning and the Road Ahead
Nepal held a national day of mourning Monday for the more than 1,300 people confirmed dead in the floods, with thousands still unaccounted for. President Paudel used the moment to call for unity rather than political division. “This is not a time for division. Nor is it a time to blame one another or become entangled in political disputes and confrontation,” he said. “This is a time to demonstrate national unity and solidarity. It is also a time for reconstruction, rehabilitation and economic recovery.”
Gupta said Nepal’s larger challenge is establishing a precedent that other countries facing climate disasters could later invoke. “It was recently a glacial collapse in the country, but soon, it will become a bigger issue as time goes on because the monsoon patterns will change, the sea level will rise,” she said.
Other developing nations, including island states at risk of being submerged, face similar threats, which Gupta said makes wealthy nations wary of setting a compensation precedent. “That is going to be a very big reason why many rich countries will probably be unwilling to pay compensation, because that would set a precedent for future issues,” she said. Still, she added that Nepal’s situation makes a strong case for accelerating global efforts to phase out fossil fuels: “The issues countries like Nepal are facing are a very strong argument to try and convince the whole world to accelerate action to phase out fossil fuels and fight climate change.”
