By Obiabin Onukwugha
Nepal government is seeking a US$20million compensation from the international Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, to enable it cushion the impacts of the recent flood that tore through communities in the Himalayas, last month.
It would be recalled that Nepal lost over 10% of its hydropower capacity when a glacier collapsed on Aug. 26, causing the landslide and flood. Mud, water and rock inundated several riverside communities near the border with China, killing more than 1,400 people and leaving thousands more missing.
The flood also broke through several hydropower dams in the Bhote Koshi river basin.
As Nepal faces the enormous task of rebuilding from the deadly flood, it is blaming countries that are major contributors to climate change for the disaster.
Nepal Foreign Minister, Shisir Khanal said the country was not merely requesting for aid or charity, but a demand for justice and “legal and moral liability.”
“Nepal’s greenhouse gas emissions are virtually negligible. Yet, we are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create. The rapid melting of glaciers and these catastrophic mountain tsunamis are direct consequences of global climate change,” Khanal told the Kathmandu Post at the weekend.
Nepal’s US$20 million request is small compared to the billions of dollars in damage, but it is an important test of the Loss and Damage Fund’s credibility.
So far the fund, created during the U.N. climate conference in 2022 to respond to the impacts of climate change in developing countries, contains a fraction of the money major greenhouse gas emitters pledged to contribute, and it has paid out nothing despite requests from at least 119 nations.
The Conversation reports that at least 119 countries have submitted requests for money from the Loss and Damage Fund to help them respond to disasters or adapt to climate change.
About 93% of the requests as of June 2026 involved extreme events such as floods. Over three-quarters included slow-onset events, such as requests for help building the infrastructure, including sea walls, and the capabilities to adapt to sea-level rise. Together, the requests totaled $2.8 billion, about 10 times the amount of money that had actually reached the fund.
The country’s finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, estimated that the country would need US$4 billion to $5 billion to rebuild from the flood damage – nearly a tenth of its national economy.
