Nepal’s flash flood “was a warning to the world,” prime minister Balendra Shah told the UN General Assembly on Thursday. “And I ask you today: Have you really heard that warning?” The flood, four weeks earlier, killed at least 1,400 people. More than 6,000 were still missing as on 25 September.
Scientists have linked the partial collapse of the glacier behind the flood to permafrost melting in a climate heated by coal, oil and gas. Nepal contributed less than one-tenth of 1% of those gases. Over the past 75 years, the US has emitted about 1,500 times more carbon than Nepal, says the Global Carbon Project.
Rebuilding will need about 10% of Nepal’s GDP. Shah rejected “another mega loan or a patchwork of small grants” and asked for grant-based support. Washington’s help so far totals $36m.
He also called for a Himalayan mechanism with India and China to share satellite data and early warnings. A Union government that keeps pushing highways and hydro projects deeper into the same fragile mountains owes him an answer.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/25/nepal-pm-flash-floods-warning-to-world-climate-change
