Nepal knows only too well the devastating dangers of climate change

September 1, 2026 — 6:17pm

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When Anthony Albanese was asked on Tuesday whether the world shared collective responsibility for the tragedy that befell Nepal last week due to its failure to tackle climate change, he ducked fast.

“Look, I think on Nepal there will be time to examine the science and what has occurred here,” he began. “My thoughts are solely focused at this point in time on the families and on the extraordinarily difficult time that we’re going through,” he said during a press conference in Palau, where he is attending a Pacific Island Forum meeting focused on regional security and climate change.

The Nepali prime minister showed no such hesitation. “The flood in the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa was not an ordinary flood,” said Balendra Shah in a social media post late on Monday. “It was one of the region’s major disasters, triggered by an avalanche of snow and ice in the Himalayan region.”

“The people of Nepal are one of the major victims of the changing climate and its impact,” he said, even though they contribute less than 0.01 per cent of the carbon pollution that is causing the warming.

Whatever Albanese might say, the scientific evidence is long-established. It is even long predicted. Nepal’s glaciers have lost almost a third of their volume in the past 30 years due to global warming, the United Nations reported in 2023. “The rooftops of the world are caving in,” said UN........

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