From Climate Justice To Regional Responsibility

The challenges facing the Himalayas today are no longer issues that can be viewed solely through the narrow lens of national borders. For Nepal, the first responsibility is clear: we must seek justice for a crime we never committed. Communities living in the Himalayan region should not be made to bear the consequences of environmental destruction and climate-related disasters to which they have contributed very little. But seeking justice cannot be the end of the conversation. It must be followed by preparation, cooperation and investment.

Nepal needs to work closely with its neighbours, who sit on the lap of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), plus other countries with interests and expertise in the Himalayan region. The scale of the challenges ahead demands more than post-disaster-response efforts. We need commitment and, to an extent, coercion to avail early signs of disaster, data mapping, cross-border information sharing, occasional drills, expert technocrats, among other things, to mitigate and prevent such disasters altogether.

The Himalayas 

The Himalayas are among the most environmentally sensitive regions and prone to the direct effects of global climate change. Any change in precipitation, glaciers, humidity, snow caps and the overall mountain ecology has a domino effect on river systems, basins, and ultimately human settlement. The human ecosystem is directly proportional to the mountain ecosystem, which is clearly evidenced by the devastation of Thami village in 2024 due to a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and the recent one in Rasuwa and Nuwakot.

When we do not heed the needs of the mountains, they themselves collude in a way of telling us. The unprecedented volume of deluge, loss of thousands of lives, even the washing away of whole villages is ample proof of the wrath of the mountains who have gone rogue due to flagrant human disregard, and in our case, bearing the brunt of global carbon emission. Nepal emits 0.01 per cent of the global carbon emissions, and for years, our forests have protected Earth’s ecosystem while trading in carbon credits with the world. Since we are disproportionately facing the effects of global warming, climate justice is a legitimate solution.