LocationsFrom Melting Glaciers to Global Action: Loss and Damage in Nepal
June 11, 2025
A panel discussion during the Loss and Damage session co-hosted by UND at the Sagarmatha Sambaad organized in Kathmandu, Nepal
As climate impacts continue to escalate globally, the concept of ‘Loss and Damage’ has taken a central stage in climate negotiations. In May 2025, the Sagarmatha Sambaad, hosted by the Government of Nepal, brought global attention to the unique vulnerabilities of mountain communities. A key session co-led by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Nepal and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development ICIMOD explored mechanisms to address irreversible climate impacts, focusing on policy, access to finance, and justice.
Understanding Loss and Damage
Loss and Damage (L&D) refers to the irreversible impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation or adaptation. These include economic losses (e.g. destroyed homes, infrastructure, crops) and non-economic ones (e.g. culture, identity, health). L&D arises from sudden disasters and slow-onset events like glacier retreat and land degradation.
For vulnerable and mountainous countries like Nepal, these impacts are fairly commonplace. As delegates gathered in Kathmandu for the Sambaad event, two glacial lakes burst in Humla, sweeping away houses and bridges and displacing 18 households. Such incidents of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are increasing in the Himalayas, as rising temperatures accelerate the melting of glaciers and create unstable lakes. In addition, floods and landslides caused by disturbed monsoon patterns regularly affect thousands of people in the region. In September 2024, extreme rainfall in Nepal alone led to more than 230 deaths, 10,800 displaced households, and over USD 335 million in economic damage.
A glacial lake outburst flood in Thame, a remote village in the Everest region of Nepal.
Without urgent climate action, Nepal could face climate-related losses exceeding 2% of its GDP by 2050. Even with large-scale mitigation, some level of damage is now unavoidable, and calls for urgent, systemic, and coordinated action.
Given that those most affected have contributed least to the issue, Loss and Damage is fundamentally a question of climate justice. Solutions must include: bridging knowledge gaps (quantifying losses, attributing them to climate change), adopting integrated risk assessment and management approaches, creating equitable and adequate financing mechanisms, and updating policies and governance systems.
Nepal's Climate Leadership: NDC 3.0 and Climate Justice
Loss and Damage is now a central pillar in global negotiations. After being formally recognized with the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013 and reinforced in the 2015 Paris Agreement, it gained traction in 2024 with the creation of a dedicated Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). Despite these advancements, challenges persist in operationalizing financial mechanisms, defining the scope of L&D, and ensuring equitable support for those most affected.
At the Sambaad, Nepal launched its third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0). For the first time, it includes a dedicated section on L&D, recognizing mountain-specific risks like GLOFs and landslides. The NDC calls for early warning systems, better understanding non-economic losses, integrating L&D into local planning, and global solidarity through the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD).
A High-Altitude Dialogue: Insights from the Sagarmatha Sambaad
Named after the country’s towering Mount Everest, this Sagarmatha Sambaad was the first edition of a biannual dialogue on climate change and mountains. It brought together not only policymakers, but also scientists, organizations and communities. Among the standout moments was a session on “Addressing Loss and Damage in the Mountains,” co-hosted by UNDP and ICIMOD. It convened global and regional experts, including Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, Executive Director of the FRLD; COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev; ICIMOD’s Dr. Arun Bhakta Shrestha and Ms Rajesh Sharma from UNDP’s Crisis Bureau; Dr. Anil Kumar Gupta from India’s National Institute of Disaster Management, and grassroots advocate Maureen Santos.
Watch a video created by UNDP Nepal that opened the Loss and Damage session at the Sagrmatha Sambaad:
The discussion opened with on-the-ground footage highlighting Nepal’s glacial melt, floods, and local community responses. Diong emphasized that solidarity must translate into accessible international finance, empowering governments and engaging the civil society and indigenous communities. He also introduced the fund’s first initiative: the Barbados Implementation Modalities, which will rapidly unlock 250 million dollars, with access modalities in the making.
Experts stressed the importance of assessment tools such as Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs) and Multi-Hazard Risk Assessments (MHRAs). The former tool is carried out after a major disaster (ex post) to evaluate the damage and losses across different sectors, identify recovery needs, plan for rebuilding and guide funding strategies. The latter is used to identify and analyze risks posed by multiple natural hazards in an area (ex ante), supporting planning and decision-making by helping prioritize actions. The panelists also highlighted a critical blind spot: non-economic losses are ignored in most frameworks, which is being rectified. Speakers thus called for the inclusion of spiritual, cultural, and ecological losses in L&D assessments.
Pathways to access the Loss and Damage fund:
As momentum builds around this agenda, Nepal has an opportunity to secure meaningful support through the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). Four building blocks are essential:
- Enabling policies: they need to be forward looking, aligned with FRLD priorities, and include both rapid and long-term responses to face climate-related shocks and stresses. Establishing a national Loss and Damage registry would be a critical first step, to ensure nationwide, harmonized data collection, analysis, and needs prioritization, and serve as a backbone for future policymaking.
Partnerships: with accredited entities (Adaptation Fund, Green Climate Fund, FRLD) to improve access to financial resources, with multilateral agencies and domestic institutions to ensure successful implementation, with neighboring countries for transboundary risks - Evidence-based approaches: future action should be informed by lessons from the past, with in-depth analyses of past disasters to strengthen policies and proposals.
- First proposal preparation: to access the FRLD’s first initiative, proposals in the USD 5-20 million range should be developed within the expected timeframe. They should prioritize strategic issues such as rapid response, bridging data gaps especially on non-economic losses, and slow-onset events.
With its leadership and lived experience, Nepal is well-positioned to become a global voice for climate justice. The message from the mountains is clear: vulnerable communities cannot afford to wait.
The devastation caused by the glacial lake outburst flood in Thame, a remote village in Nepal’s Everest region, underscores the growing threat of climate-induced disasters.