Rasuwa Drowned, But Will Climate Finance Arrive?
Subarna Poudel
BSc. Ag
Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU)
On the morning of 26 August 2026, a massive ice–rock avalanche in the upper Bhote Koshi
watershed near to China–Nepal border converted into a powerful debris flow, sending
enormous volumes of water, ice, rock and sediment downstream into Rasuwa and other
districts.
Few minutes later, homes, hotels, hydropower, banks and different sections of Pasang
Lhamu Highway swept away. Till now 1,410 dead bodies have already been recovered while
6,145 people are still missing.
According to the official Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) reports jointly
published by the National Planning Commission (NPC) and National Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) Nepal’s estimated recovery and
reconstruction needs stand at NPR 723.315 billion (approximately US$4.78 billion).
Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emission, yet it is paying an
extreme price for a crisis it did not create. In the days after the flood, the government wrote
to the United Nations’ Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), seeking US$
20million in emergency support and recovering from the disaster as a matter of climate
justice, not charity. This incident has thus become more than just a national concern but, it
is also the real World test of whether the global climate finance system can deliver on its
promise of loss and damage support for the suffering countries.
A New Test for Loss and Damage Finance
For years, Nepal has been getting mostly the climate finance mainly through the project
based grants for the work like adaptation, forestry and low carbon development, including
supports from Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility and REDD+ initiatives.
These mechanism of finance remains important, but these are mainly developed for
planned process not for the rapid response to suddenly arriving disasters that are linked to
climate change.
The Rasuwa case is somewhat different. The government’s letter to the FRLD frames the
disaster in the context of climate-related changes in the Himalayan cryosphere and the
country’s high vulnerability to climate impacts and eventually asks the international
communities for assistance as a moral liability of major emitters. It changes the
conversation from the humanitarian aid to the responsibility.
If the amount is approved, that requested amount of $20million would help cover the
immediate relief, early recovery and some other preparedness measures. But even that
amount is really small compared to the estimated amount of reconstruction. Nepal still
need to rely on loans to fill the gap this situation have created, raising the uncomfortable
condition that a country barely responsible for the crisis could end up deeper in debt
because of it.
Why Rasuwa flood is of Global concern?
How the FRLD and other global funds respond to Nepal’s request will set example for other
mountain and climate-vulnerable countries. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage
establishment agreed after years of negotiations at Conference of the Parties (COP27) and
its operationalization further advanced at COP28 precisely for moments like this when
climate impacts across the threshold of what adaptation can handle and that eventually
causes irreversible loss.
However, questions remain over whether the Fund’s procedures can deliver the finance
quick enough to meet the needs of community facing sudden-onset disasters. If loss and
damage finance arrives too late or as additional debts, it will lower down the credibility of
the entire climate finance structure and redefine the perception that “Loss and Damage” is
a slogan, not a solution.
What Nepal should ask for at the UN and COP?
As Nepal is presenting its presentations at the UN General Assembly and the next
Conference of the Parties (COP31), the Rasuwa experience should shape its demands.
This is the best place, where Nepal should call for the adequate grant-based climate
finance for adaptation, resilience, loss and damage, and disaster recovery. While asking for
the fund, Nepal must insist that climate finance does not become another source of debt
for the nation already struggling with disaster impacts.
The country should also demand for stronger international mechanisms for scientific
monitoring of glaciers, unstable mountain slopes in cooperation with China and India to
improve early warning and risk reduction.
Finally, Nepal must demand for the rapid reduction in the carbon emission by the heavy
emitters and to end the fossil fuel expansion, because no any amount of finance as
compensation can fully recover unchecked warming in the Himalayas.