Climate Justice

When a wall of icy debris from a glacial collapse on the China-Nepal border tore through his village last week, Pemba Chhring Tamang watched the landscape he had known all his life disappear. "The flood was one like I had never seen before," said the 57-year-old, rescued from his Himalayan village in Nepal's devastated Rasuwa district. "It destroyed everything, our homes, our village."

The August 26 disaster, one of Nepal's worst climate-linked catastrophes, killed more than 1'200 people and left more than 4'750 missing in Nepal and China's Tibet region, smashing towns, roads, bridges and multiple hydropower dams. "What has Nepal done to deserve this?" asked Tashi Lhazom, a Nepali climate activist. "It is among the most climate-vulnerable countries, but at the same time, it is also the most climate-friendly."

Warming at twice the global rate

The Himalayan region is warming roughly at twice the rate of anywhere else in the world, according to disaster specialists at ICIMOD. Nepal, a largely rural nation of 30 million people that has contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming, says reconstruction could cost "billions" of dollars.

"We are suffering for a crime that we did not commit," Lhazom said. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal called the disaster a "warning signal" and told AFP that support to Nepal should not be viewed only from an angle of aid or charity, but from a perspective of climate justice as well.