All is not well in the Earth’s third pole: the price of climate inaction

The catastrophic Himalayan flood of August 26, which originated at the Nepal-China border from a glacier outburst, was unprecedented in the scale of lives lost, economic damage and topographic alteration. There are no signs the losses from this climate tragedy are slowing down even weeks later, while the fragility of the Himalayas to accelerating climate change has become increasingly evident.

It is an inconvenient truth that the heating of the planet is unsettling the Earth’s Third Pole, prompting glacier retreats, enlarging glacial lakes, and triggering floods. There are more than 2,000 glacial lakes across the Nepal-China border and a humane hope is that a climate crisis lightning bolt of this magnitude will not strike twice.

But ruling out a future glacial outburst comes at our own peril. So, what can this Himalayan nation, including neighbouring countries like India and China, learn from this disaster as these glacial lake bursts are poised to become a common climate hazard?

Vulnerable countries need to adapt and minimise adverse impacts by adopting textbook solutions such as structural and engineering measures, early monitoring and warning systems and community resilience. However, this is easier stated than done considering the mass global impact and the large-scale adaptation financing needs.

Around 15 million people globally live under the direct threat of a glacial flood event, according to the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative. The Hindu Kush Himalayan region alone, which includes eight mountaineering nations, including Nepal, China and India, has an estimated population of around 240 million people living in the mountain and hill areas. This region is known for possessing the largest volume of ice and snow outside the polar regions, hence it is referred to as the Third Pole.  But it also is the region known to be most exposed to the vulnerabilities of elevated global warming.

Lake level control through artificial channels, dam reinforcement using concrete barriers, channel modification such as widening river streams are the popular structural and engineering adaptation measures to minimise the impact of extreme peak discharges. Early warning systems through automated sensors, hydrological monitors and weather stations, including using satellite data and aerial mapping in tracking glacial lakes, are the popular monitoring and warning systems to be installed. Common community resilience measures include managing retreat such as relocating vulnerable homes and infrastructure and encouraging local preparedness through community education campaigns.

Nepal has already announced it will rebuild a sophisticated early-warning system for landslides by installing seismic sensors, cameras and a satellite ​links along the Nepal-China border. Robust transnational cooperation involving China, Nepal and India in sharing cross-border meteorological data and hazard assessments, including technology transfer across shared mountain ranges, is expected to bolster disaster preparedness. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development has been coordinating scientific and policy assessments in the Himalayas in providing oversight on climate and environmental challenges, but it is suffering from a projected climate finance funding deficit of around $12 trillion needed for adaptation and mitigation by 2050.

Globally too, the climate adaption funding gap facing the vulnerable mountain communities is enormous—only about 3% of global climate finance reaches mountain regions, and less than 1% of adaptation funding explicitly targets glacier protection as reported by the Green Climate Fund.  The Hindu Kush Himalayan region remains one of the world’s most underfunded ecosystems, while this region is also the one most vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate change.

The contribution of the HKH region to global climate change is low as per capita CO₂ emissions are just one-sixth of the global average. Nepal is a victim of climate injustice, contributing less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The government of Nepal has requested $20 million in climate-related damages from the United Nations loss and damage fund, which was established in 2022 in line with the Paris climate agreement, although the total damage bill from the flood is expected to surpass $5 billion. Nepal alone requires approximately $46 billion by 2030 to execute its National Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

However, the UN’s loss and damage fund has already proven to be a Pandora’s box and faces significant financing gap. Around 119 countries have requested a fund amount totalling $2.8 billion, but so far only around $400 million has been provided by the international donor community. The US has donated just $17 million towards the fund following its withdrawal from the Paris agreement. It also defunded a vital flagship disaster-monitoring partnership that utilised satellite technology to track floods and glacial lakes in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region.

The Nepal-China flood should be a wake-up call for global community and economically powerful nations like the US. It is a reminder of the need for a just and effective allocation of climate and global development financing. For rich, developed countries to deny the global climate problem and its consequences hurts their own interests in the long run. Recipient countries also have a responsibility to ensure they maximise the efficiency of the development financing funds they receive by acting to strengthen institutions and regulations.

Increased financial support for climate-affected developing countries and enhanced cooperation within the international community are urgently required to combat escalating climate emergencies like glacial floods.

A Himalayan flood may well have a local origin, but the impact is global. An isolationist approach will be ineffective and costly.

Professor Rabindra Nepal is from the School of Business within the Faculty of Arts, Society and Business of the University of Wollongong. The author wishes to acknowledge the use Google AI as a research tool. He conducted independent verification.