Nepal tells world’s biggest polluters to wake up after catastrophic floods

Gyirong. Nepal Tibet boarder crossing, before and after

Nepal wants $20m — but the damage could exceed $5bn

Nepal has delivered a blunt message to the world's biggest polluters after the Himalayan floods that killed or left missing more than 6,000 people.

Wake up.

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal says the world's largest economies must accept a shared responsibility for helping Nepal recover from a catastrophe that has destroyed homes, roads, villages and entire communities.

Nepal has formally requested $20 million from the UN's loss and damage fund.

There is just one extraordinary comparison.

The country's total losses could eventually exceed $5 billion.

“A tsunami coming from the Himalayas”

Khanal says the disaster was unlike anything Nepal normally experiences during the monsoon.

He described it as “a tsunami that was coming from the Himalayas.”

Waves as high as 60 or 70 feet, carrying mud, rocks, debris and boulders, swept through communities at terrifying speed.

Towns disappeared.

Villages were wiped out.

Highways were destroyed.

And some areas remain cut off.

The scale of destruction, Khanal said, was comparable to the devastation caused by Nepal's 2015 earthquake.

The country that barely pollutes

That is what makes Nepal's argument particularly powerful.

Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet it sits in one of the world's most vulnerable environments.

The Himalayas are warming at a rate significantly faster than the global average, while glaciers are retreating.

The UN has previously warned that Nepal's mountains lost almost a third of their ice in just over three decades.

Now the country is dealing with the consequences.

China and India are next door

Nepal's geographical position makes the argument even more politically sensitive.

Its giant neighbours, China and India, are among the world's largest emitters.

Khanal initially pointed towards both countries when discussing who should help.

But he later broadened his argument.

This, he said, was not simply about blaming one country.

It was about the international community accepting that vulnerable countries can suffer enormous consequences from a problem to which they have contributed very little.

$20 million isn't remotely enough

And Nepal knows perfectly well that the amount it is asking for will not rebuild the country.

Khanal openly admitted that $20 million is nowhere near enough.

More than 20,000 homes may need to be rebuilt.

The main highway will require major reconstruction.

And some villages that were built along vulnerable river corridors may have to be moved permanently to higher ground.

The eventual bill could be measured in billions.

The $20 million is therefore less about paying the bill than establishing the principle.

The loss and damage fund has its own problem

There is another uncomfortable figure.

The UN's loss and damage mechanism has already received requests totalling around $2.8 billion from roughly 119 countries.

Only about $400 million has so far been provided.

That is a massive gap.

Nepal is therefore asking for money from a fund that is itself struggling to find enough money.

And that could make its demand politically very difficult.

America has complicated the picture

The United States has contributed only around $17 million to the fund, according to the report, after Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.

That makes the international argument even more complicated.

The world's biggest economies are being asked to provide substantially more assistance to countries facing increasingly expensive climate-related disasters.

But some of those same governments are reluctant to accept the idea that they should be financially responsible for individual catastrophes.

Nepal isn't blaming China for the warning

There is another important point in Khanal's interview.

Despite the disaster beginning with a glacier collapse in Chinese-controlled Tibet, he rejected suggestions that China failed to provide Nepal with an adequate warning.

He said neither Nepal nor Chinese scientists knew that this particular glacier was about to collapse.

With hindsight, the glacier was clearly fragile.

But hindsight is not an early-warning system.

And that distinction matters.

This may be the warning

Khanal's bigger argument is that Nepal's disaster should not be treated as an isolated tragedy.

He believes it is a warning about what increasingly vulnerable mountain communities could face in the future.

“Wake up,” is essentially his message.

Prepare.

Build better warning systems.

Move vulnerable communities when necessary.

Strengthen infrastructure.

And make sure countries that have suffered the least from global emissions are not left carrying the largest bills when disaster strikes.

Nepal's $20 million question

There is a huge debate hiding inside Nepal's relatively modest demand.

Who pays when climate-related disasters destroy countries that contributed almost nothing to the problem?

And how do you calculate responsibility when a disaster has multiple causes — in this case a glacier collapse, extreme flooding and a changing Himalayan climate?

Nepal isn't claiming that a cheque for $20 million will rebuild the country.

It won't.

The real demand is for the international system to start taking countries like Nepal seriously before the next disaster arrives.

Because after the water has gone, the roads have disappeared and thousands of people are dead or missing, it is rather too late to start talking about preparation.

Nepal has suffered the disaster.

Now it wants the world to wake up before the next one.

SOURCE

I've seen Nepalis throw their plastic garbage everywhere. Filthy towns and cities. They're fond of polluting transport and mass consumption.

People who live in glass houses ..... etc. .........