KATHMANDU, Sept 14: Nepal’s recent floods and landslides have exposed the growing climate risks facing the Himalayan country despite its negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, international law professor Surya Prasad Subedi said.
Speaking at an interaction on Nepal’s changing political situation and emerging geopolitical challenges organized by Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, Subedi described the recent disasters as a “Himalayan tsunami,” saying they should not be viewed simply as isolated natural disasters but as manifestations of the global climate crisis.
Subedi, a professor of international law at the University of Leeds in the UK, said Nepal is among the countries contributing the least to global carbon emissions but remains highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.
“Nepal is estimated to account for only around 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it continues to be recognized as one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries,” he said. “Nepal’s situation is therefore a clear example of climate injustice.”
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He said the recent disasters had highlighted the link between human-induced climate change and increasingly intense climatic and hydro-meteorological risks in fragile mountain environments.
“The main cause is the historical and current emissions of industrial economies, which have fundamentally altered the Earth’s climate system,” Subedi said. He added that countries and communities least responsible for climate change are increasingly bearing its most devastating consequences.
From an international legal perspective, he said Nepal’s experience raises important questions about climate justice, state responsibility and the equitable distribution of obligations under international environmental law.
“The challenge for the new-generation Gen-Z government is to convey to the international community that Nepal’s experience is not merely a national disaster, but also a powerful test of whether contemporary international law can effectively address the moral and legal inequalities arising from a warming planet,” he said.
Subedi said Nepal could seek stronger international support for climate justice by advancing a UN General Assembly resolution recognizing the vulnerability of mountain ecosystems, the degradation of Himalayan glaciers as a global concern and the need to strengthen support for loss and damage.
He identified three legal principles that could support Nepal’s case: prevention of transboundary environmental harm, the “polluter pays” principle and human rights law.
He also suggested that Nepal work with the G77, the Non-Aligned Movement, least developed countries and small island states, which share similar concerns over climate vulnerability and compensation.
Scientists studying the recent disasters have pointed to the possibility that climate change-induced glacier instability contributed to the conditions that triggered them. Subedi said the disasters were the result of interconnected environmental processes, many of which are being intensified by climate change.
Although international law does not currently provide a straightforward mechanism for Nepal to obtain direct compensation from a particular state, he said existing legal principles could strengthen Nepal’s moral and political case for international environmental justice.
Participants from Sweden’s diplomatic, political and intellectual circles expressed support for Subedi’s views and discussed ways Nepal could gain greater international backing.
The event began with a minute of silence in memory of those killed in Nepal’s recent disasters. Professor Ulla Bergström of the University of Gothenburg opened the program.
