Nepal's nightmare and the case for climate accountability

IT is peak climbing season in the Himalayas. But a Nepali friend, a mountaineering guide, laments how the devastating Aug 26 glacial flood at the Nepal-Tibet border is having a dampening effect on the tourist trade impoverished Nepal heavily relies on.

This friend works only a few months in a year, during spring and autumn when mountain trekkers come, to support a wife and young child through the entire year.

As trekker numbers are down to a trickle, he considers changing jobs but there are few which pay a decent, liveable wage.

That is also the reason why many Nepalis are driven to find better-paying jobs abroad, including Malaysia.

Life may be tough on the roof of the world, but climate change is making it infinitely worse.

How can it be good publicity when images of the ferocious and sudden flood wiping out whole mountain-side settlements, leaving nearly 1,500 dead and thousands more missing and presumed dead (including Malaysians) were carried globally on TV screens, newspapers and social media.

There is then the rebuilding, which includes repairing more than a dozen hydropower dams and rehabilitating lives in the affected regions — the estimates of which are reportedly in the billions of US dollars.

Foreign aid, like foreign travellers, is trickling in ever so slowly and proving woefully inadequate to the tasks confronting an inexperienced new government in Kathmandu, which came to power following much political upheaval.

Nepal's plight brings into sharp focus not just the ill effects of climate change writ large, but also the corresponding issue of climate justice.

Like most poor or developing countries, Nepal contributes precious little of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change, historically or presently.

Despite this, Nepal and other developing nations are on the front line in feeling the most devastating effects of what climate change can bring.

If global warming continues apace or worse, accelerates, the collapse of ancient glaciers high up in the Himalayas may become an even more common occurrence.

One shudders to think how much worse the ensuing devastation may become. Equally, one must question if anything adequate can be found by way of mitigating future calamities.

Is the relocation of entire populations the only true solution, whether we are talking about those living high up in the Himalayas or islanders on small Pacific Ocean atolls facing rising sea levels from global warming?

Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah's address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 24 drew attention to the "Himalayan Tsunami" just a month earlier.

Apart from the loss of thousands of lives (confirmed dead or missing), he said the destruction was equal to about a tenth of Nepal's gross domestic product.

Shah also proposed a joint regional framework involving Nepal, India and China to share satellite data, monitor glacial lakes and upgrade early warning systems.

Most critically, he called on wealthy countries (and major polluters) to provide grant-based financing instead of loans for managing climate disasters.

Will the world take heed?

* The writer views developments in the nation, region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching