Nepal's flood bill lands on the world's biggest polluters

"Should we pay to rebuild a disaster that happened in another country?"

Natural disasters — typhoons, heat waves, droughts, tsunamis, landslides — can leave destruction on a scale that overwhelms human capacity to respond.

When homes collapse and roads are severed, it has always been difficult to point at anyone and say, "You broke this — you pay for it." That is why such events have long been accepted as acts of God.

That assumption is now being challenged. A country that recently suffered catastrophic disaster losses has sent what amounts to a bill to major emitters — the United States, China, India and others — demanding they share the cost of rebuilding.

At first glance, the demand sounds absurd. But follow the reasoning behind it, and the picture looks rather different.

The argument is not about who directly caused a particular disaster, but about who contributed most to the climate crisis that made it possible — and whether that contribution should translate into a share of the damage bill.

As climate-linked disasters grow more frequent, that argument is gaining traction.

South Korea is not exempt. Overshadowed by the United States and China in headline emissions figures, South Korea's per-capita carbon output ranks among the highest in the world. That means the country could face growing pressure to shoulder a larger share of the costs when climate disasters strike elsewhere.

A massive disaster struck Nepal's northern Himalayan region on Aug. 26. Glaciers and bedrock gave way simultaneously, sending a torrent of ice, rock and soil crashing down into the valleys below. Villages, roads, bridges and hydroelectric facilities were swept away before anyone could respond.

The confirmed death toll has already surpassed 1,200, with thousands more still missing. Some 20,000 homes need to be rebuilt.

The cost is the central problem. Nepal's government estimates reconstruction will require at least $4 billion to $5 billion — equivalent to about 10 percent of the country's GDP. In other words, Nepal must devote the equivalent of a tenth of its entire annual economic output to disaster recovery.

Nepal does not intend to bear that cost alone. The government has in effect handed a bill to China, the United States, India and other nations.

Nepali Foreign Minister Sishir Khanal recently told local media that he intends to reframe how disaster assistance is understood — not as simple "aid," but as a matter of "justice and compensation."

He specifically named China, the United States and India as countries with heavy historical emissions records and called on them to acknowledge their "historical responsibility." Nepal's Finance Ministry has also sent formal letters to international partners seeking climate compensation.

Nepal's decision to hold other countries accountable rests on the link between this disaster and climate change. This was not an ordinary flood caused by heavy rainfall. In the high Himalayas, massive glaciers and rock formations collapsed at once, pouring ice, boulders and soil into rivers and sending a devastating torrent downstream.

Experts say rising temperatures driven by climate change are destabilizing the terrain at high altitudes by melting Himalayan glaciers and permafrost. As the ice that once held mountain slopes and rock faces together retreats and meltwater seeps into cracks in the bedrock, the risk of landslides and collapses grows.

Data bear this out. Glacier coverage across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region shrank by about 12 percent between 1990 and 2020, and the rate of ice loss since 2000 has roughly doubled compared with the preceding period.

Nepal's core argument is that it has contributed little to the problem while absorbing a disproportionate share of the consequences. The country accounted for just 0.05 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2024. If carbon emissions are accepted as the cause of this disaster, Nepal's share of the blame amounts to 0.05 percent.

On a per-person basis, the figure is even smaller. Nepal's per-capita CO2 emissions in 2024 stood at 0.63 tonnes. The deeper problem is that the burden of climate disasters falls in particular on poorer countries that emit the least.

According to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the world's least developed countries have contributed roughly 1 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions to date. Yet they accounted for about 70 percent of all deaths from climate-related disasters over the past 50 years.

The disparity is not simply about where disasters occur. Between 1970 and 2019, the least developed countries experienced fewer than 20 percent of the world's climate-related disasters, yet suffered about 70 percent of the deaths. Whether a disaster kills depends heavily on infrastructure and the capacity to respond.

The financial toll follows the same pattern. Between 2015 and 2024, direct economic losses from disasters in the least developed countries amounted to 3.22 percent of their GDP, compared with a global average of 0.28 percent — more than 11 times the worldwide norm.

Wealthier nations can build flood barriers, drainage systems and early-warning networks before disaster strikes, and can draw on insurance and government funds to rebuild afterward. Poorer countries often lack the money to prevent disasters in the first place.

Funding for climate adaptation is also far short of what is needed. The UN Environment Programme projects that developing countries will need at least $310 billion a year by 2035 to adapt to climate change — floods, heat waves, droughts and the rest. Yet in 2023, international public adaptation finance flowing from developed to developing countries totaled just $26 billion, roughly one-twelfth of the projected need.

The international community created a Loss and Damage Fund to address this gap. But as of March, pledges from 27 global partners to the fund totaled only $822.06 million — a fraction of the $4 billion to $5 billion estimated just to rebuild Nepal after this single disaster.

Calls are growing for developed nations with large historical emissions to contribute more to climate disaster response. South Korea cannot sidestep that pressure.

According to a carbon neutrality implementation report by the McKinsey Global Institute, South Korea's annual per-capita CO2 emissions stand at around 15.5 tonnes — more than double the global average of 7.3 tonnes, and markedly higher than those of neighboring Japan (10 tonnes) and China (9 tonnes). The figure is comparable to that of the United States (19 tonnes).

Some projections suggest South Korea could soon rank first in the world in per-capita CO2 emissions. The Climate Change Action Institute analyzed in 2021 that if the world's 10 largest economies follow through on their announced greenhouse gas reduction targets, South Korea could have the highest per-capita CO2 emissions among that group by 2030.

An official at a global environmental organization said South Korea must recognize that it is a significant contributor to climate change and that victims are being created as a result. "We also cannot consider ourselves immune from the damage," the official said. "The government has a responsibility to keep telling the public that acting on climate change is a choice for a better life."