Close to a month after the catastrophic Bhotekoshi disaster of 26 August 2026, the scale of destruction is becoming somewhat clearer. The death toll has increased to 1,410, and the number of missing has climbed to 6,145. The Nepali government’s initial estimates put the losses at about US$2.56 billion, while broader reconstruction estimates have approached US$5 billion. The human and emotional consequences are much greater than these monetary estimates. It will take years to fully recover livelihood systems. Rescue and emergency relief operations are still going on. We may not get a grip on the actual loss from this disaster for a long time.
This unprecedented disaster has also raised various questions: what caused such an extraordinary event; why did the adaptation systems fail to protect people; how should destroyed infrastructure be rebuilt; and what does the disaster tell us about the development path Nepal has followed in hazard-prone mountain environments? Answers to these questions have consequences for the way the government should approach reconstruction and recovery, along with soliciting funds and support from international agencies and other countries.
A changing Himalayan risk environment
It is quite clear that the disaster event was extraordinary in both origin and speed. A massive section of glacier and rock associated with Langtang Lirung collapsed from a high elevation, releasing an estimated 110 million cubic metres of rock and ice into the drainage system. The resulting surge travelled rapidly through the Lhende Khola, Bhotekoshi and Trishuli valleys. Recent attribution research indicates that the Himalayan region experienced exceptional warmth during the period, with human-induced warming contributing to conditions that destabilised the glacier and surrounding slopes. The study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of researchers revealed that the mean temperatures were around 5 degrees Celsius higher than normal in the Himalayan region in August, with 1.5 C of the increase coming from climate change. Accordingly, scientists now confidently state that climate change is highly likely to have contributed to the catastrophic disaster although the legacy of the 2015 earthquake might have also contributed.
The warming and other changes associated with climate change have widely transformed the disaster risk environment in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH). ICIMOD’s 2026 assessment found that glaciers across the HKH lost about 12 per cent of their area between 1990 and 2020 and about 9 per cent of estimated ice reserves. Glacier ice-loss rates have approximately doubled since 2000. The changes are uneven, but they are widespread and have implications for slope stability, glacial hazards, and downstream settlements. For example, glacier retreat changes the volume and stability of glacial lakes; warming contributes to permafrost degradation; and thawing permafrost destabilises slopes, alters sediment flows and increases the likelihood of rockfalls, debris flows and other cascading hazards. ICIMOD identifies permafrost degradation as a factor affecting hydrology, landscape evolution, sediment loads, debris flows and rockfalls.
Adaptation to climate change and its limitations
Scientists had warned long ago that the disasters would increase in frequency and magnitude in general, and that Himalayan regions are more vulnerable. Accordingly, climate change became an international policy concern, and adaptation was presented as one of the main ways vulnerable countries could cope with its impacts. Adaptation therefore became an important part of international climate policy, particularly for developing countries.
Nepal followed this approach. It prepared a National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and later developed the Local Adaptation Plans of Action (LAPA) to bring adaptation into local planning. These programmes helped identify local vulnerabilities and adaptation priorities. However, there was always a gap between preparing adaptation plans and obtaining the resources needed to implement them.
There was also a political dimension to the international emphasis on adaptation. Adaptation helped countries cope to an extent with the consequences of climate change, but it did not address the more difficult question of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. For countries such as Nepal, adaptation was necessary, but it could never address the underlying cause of global warming. This disaster was so rapid and extreme that existing adaptation and early-warning systems could not provide enough time to protect people. The rock-and-ice avalanche moved downstream at an extraordinary speed, reaching Rasuwagadhi about 22 kilometres away in roughly seven minutes. This speed of the flood (roughly 170 km per hour) was exceptionally rapid compared to the general flood speed (20–30 km per hour) in the monsoon period. In a way, the Bhotekoshi event was outside the assumptions on which many existing systems were designed. Some people who got the message about the flood did not imagine that such a huge flood was possible and so did not take extraordinary steps required to escape the flood. Moreover, the disaster was so devastating that it would have been a big challenge even for a well-prepared developed country.
The understanding that there are such limits to adaptation was the conceptual basis for the emergence of the international debate over loss and damage. The creation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) under the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was an important political recognition that adaptation and mitigation alone are insufficient and that there are irreversible impacts of climate change that developing countries are facing. After long advocacy, the Paris Agreement in 2015 accepted this concept, but the implementation process started in 2023 (CoP held in Dubai, Saudi Arabia).
It was estimated that about US$400 billion is required for this purpose annually. But there seems to be no commensurate commitments from the developed countries, which are principally responsible, given their historical contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for this purpose. By April 2025, total pledges to the Fund stood at less than US$1 billion. Moreover, there are already many claims to this fund. Against this background, Nepal may not get substantial support from FRLD. Nepal has also been getting some aid from developed countries in the form of humanitarian support. By now, this disaster has been widely reported in the global media, and so Nepal may also get some more support. But, in all likelihood, this ‘aid’ will not be enough to meet the expenses required to recover from the disaster.
The lesson from Bhotekoshi disaster is not that adaptation has failed or should be abandoned; rather that adaptation is necessary but has limits. Nepal needs to continue investing in adaptation while also strengthening the international case for loss and damage, responsibility, and climate justice.
From humanitarian assistance to climate justice
Compassion and solidarity underline humanitarian assistance, whereas climate justice foregrounds a different principle: responsibility. If a country contributing very little to GHG emissions suffers severe consequences of a warming climate, it raises the moral argument: how should the costs of unavoidable climate-related losses be shared?
Nepal is a particularly compelling case, contributing less than 0.1% to global GHG emissions, with disproportionately high exposure to climate-related risks. Nepal has already requested FRLD for support, linking the disaster to climate change as well. It has received US$20 million in an earlier application and is waiting for the decision on this Bhote Koshi flood. However, a serious claim of climate injustice cannot simply rest on a broad assertion that climate change caused the disaster. Such a claim must locate itself on grounds more complex and nuanced.
Some new studies have clearly revealed that climate change is a triggering factor for this disaster. Many prominent scholars and advocates of climate change in developed countries have also expressed similar concerns. Nevertheless, there are several contested issues on the question of who is responsible, and which emissions count—current, historical, or cumulative. Should responsibility be calculated by total national emissions or per capita emissions? How should the contribution of rapidly industrialising countries be treated? These are questions that need to be examined at the global scale. For Nepal, the most difficult challenge is to demonstrate how this particular disaster is scientifically and legally connected to GHG emissions from specific states. These are substantial challenges. But they do not make the question of climate justice irrelevant.
The significance of the International Court of Justice advisory opinion
On 23 July 2025, the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its landmark advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change. This opinion provides an important new international legal context for climate justice. It did not begin as a conventional diplomatic project led by powerful states. It was catalysed by young Pacific Islander students. The Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, a group of law students, began campaigning for an authoritative legal statement on the responsibilities of states for climate change. Their campaign was subsequently taken up by Vanuatu and other Pacific states and ultimately resulted in the UN General Assembly requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ.
The Court affirmed that states have obligations under international law concerning protection of the climate system and the environment. It also addressed the legal consequences that may arise when those obligations are breached, including the possibility of reparation under applicable conditions. An advisory opinion is not itself a compensation mechanism, and establishing responsibility for a particular loss would require evidence concerning the relevant legal obligations, wrongful conduct, causation, and attribution. Nevertheless, the opinion is significant because it strengthens the idea that, under appropriate circumstances, climate-related harm can also raise questions of legal responsibility and reparation.
For Nepal, this changes the language of the debate. The question need not be limited to ‘How much assistance can Nepal receive?’ It can also ask: ‘What responsibilities arise when countries that have contributed relatively little to climate change suffer serious climate-related harm?’ Nepal’s participation in the international climate debate, including its engagement with the ICJ process, gives it a basis for making this argument. Even if substantial compensation is difficult to secure under the present international political order, establishing the language and evidence of climate injustice remains important. Therefore, Nepal’s voice in the UN General Assembly could strengthen this shift in language, and it could be a pathway to get compensation in such cases in the future, even though substantial support is not expected. But that could be a major conceptual shift.
This framing of the language is also important. For example, the Falepili Union Treaty signed by Australia and Tuvalu in November 2023 and came into effect in August 2024. This agreement was in response to an existential problem in Tuvalu created by climate change. After some pressure, Australia made a special pathway allowing Tuvaluans to live, work, and study permanently in Australia. Even though this is more symbolic, as the initial allocation is up to 280 people per year, the Australian government explicitly links this mobility pathway to climate change. The treaty says the two countries recognise climate change as an existential threat and creates what it calls ‘human mobility with dignity’. The arrangement can thus be interpreted as a form of ‘justice in practice without explicitly calling it climate justice’.
The language of climate justice has been avoided as it could be a precedent or legal responsibility in other cases. This shows that the powerful states are reluctant to use the language of liability, reparations, or climate refugees, which indicates how politically consequential that language could become. The Tuvalu case is not directly comparable to Nepal, but it demonstrates that responses to climate change can extend beyond physical adaptation and financial assistance. Mobility can also become part of a wider package of resilience, livelihood diversification, and dignity.
Nepal should therefore document this disaster extraordinarily carefully. The country needs a comprehensive assessment of deaths, displacement, destroyed homes, businesses, infrastructure, hydropower, tourism, cultural heritage, ecological damage, and lost livelihoods. It also needs scientific research into the physical chain linking warming, glacier and permafrost change, slope instability, and the particular flood event. Such evidence would not automatically establish a legal claim. But without it, the argument for climate justice will remain largely moral and political.
The present global political environment is becoming less favourable for climate justice. Nationalist and far-right political forces are gaining influence in many developed countries. Climate sceptics and those opposed to international climate finance also have greater influence in policymaking. This makes it harder for countries such as Nepal that have contributed very little to global GHG emissions but face serious climate-related losses to demand support based on equity and historical responsibility. Nevertheless, it is still important for Nepal to establish and strengthen the language of climate injustice and compensation. Such claims help make visible the unequal distribution of climate responsibility and impacts and keep questions of justice on the international agenda.
Rethinking development in Nepal
The disaster also exposes a deeper question about ‘development’, requiring rethinking of the relationship between development and geography—the rethinking not so much geared toward outright rejecting ‘development’, than redesigning it as compatible with the risks of a rapidly changing mountain environment, while avoiding reconstruction that simply reproduces the pre-disaster geography. This means stronger land-use planning, cumulative environmental-risk assessment, more careful infrastructure siting, resilient local economies, and recovery policies that reduce, rather than reproduce, vulnerability.
The question of disaster justice is also an important lesson arising from this disaster. Because of the concentration of economic opportunities in this narrow floodplain river valley, all types of people—wealthy entrepreneurs and poor workers—moved to this place. Many of the workers from the surrounding areas were victims of the 2015 earthquake from which they had not fully recovered. Their mobility to this floodplain was a part of their recovery strategy, but it created further vulnerabilities for them.
The development work in this corridor, which instigated unplanned and ad hoc changes in the geography, was agnostic to the geography of risks and vulnerabilities being produced, which was unequivocally exposing people, both rich and poor, to hazards. In this sense, exposure was widely shared, but the capacity to recover from the disaster will not be, exposing those materially disenfranchised to further vulnerabilities and risks to other disasters like food security, diseases, indebtedness, and displacement. In the recovery phase of this disaster, these issues need to be addressed, and early-warning systems redesigned for cascading mountain hazards. As such disasters are transnational, cooperation between countries—like Nepal and China in this instance—is particularly important.
The Bhotekoshi disaster is therefore more than a catastrophic flood. It is a warning about a changing Himalayan risk system. Climate change is weakening the stability of the mountains, while infrastructure and economic activity are increasing exposure to hazards. In this context, Nepal needs a development model in which geography, climate risk and social justice are treated as central in planning—not as factors to be considered after planning decisions are made.
