On 26 August, Nepal suffered one of the darkest days in its recent history. High in the Himalayas along the Nepal–China border, a collapse of glacial ice and bedrock triggered a catastrophic debris flow down the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river system. The resulting torrent — described by some as a “Himalayan tsunami” because of its extraordinary force and scale — sent a wall of water, ice, mud and boulders tearing through settlements across a roughly 70-kilometre stretch of the valley, carrying debris and the remains of many victims as far as 240 kilometres downstream towards the Indian border.
The human toll is staggering. As of 6 September, more than 1,300 deaths have been recorded as result of this tragedy while close to 5,000 people are still missing. The figures are still rising as rescue efforts continue.
Satellite imagery had picked up signs of instability in the glacier and surrounding bedrock in the days before it gave way. Scientists will spend months untangling the precise chain of events, and how far a warming climate shaped the conditions behind it. But one lesson is already clear: in a world of accelerating climate risk, preparedness cannot be an afterthought — and information is only useful if it reaches the people who need to act on it, in time.
The Pacific and Nepal: A shared vulnerability, however far apart
For the Pacific, climate change is a present crisis affecting lives, livelihoods, security and development. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have consistently declared climate change the single greatest existential threat to the Pacific region, calling for urgent emissions cuts, a strict limit of 1.5°C on global warming, and improved access to fast finance, amongst other things.
Nepal may be geographically distant from the Pacific, but the climate story unfolding in the Himalayas will feel strikingly familiar to communities across the Pacific. Nepal watches the ice above its communities; Pacific islanders watch the ocean at their doorstep. In the Himalayas, retreating glaciers and swelling glacial lakes are reshaping risk for mountain communities. In the Pacific, it is rising seas, coastal inundation, stronger cyclones, saltwater intrusion, drought and coral loss.
For Pacific Islands Countries and Territories, changes in the ocean translate directly into food and water insecurity, disrupted livelihoods and, in places, the loss of the very land people call home. From ridge to reef, from mountain to atoll, climate risk does not respect borders, and the questions it raises are the same everywhere: who is most exposed, who has the resources to prepare, and who bears the cost when adaptation reaches its limits?
Climate Justice: Paying most for contributing least
Between them, Nepal and the Pacific emit only a tiny fraction of global greenhouse gases, yet their people sit on some of the crisis’s most exposed frontlines. That is what makes this a question of justice, not just risk management: financing adaptation before disasters strike, delivering real loss-and-damage support once impacts can no longer be avoided, and giving vulnerable countries access to the science, data and early-warning systems that can save lives.
The Pacific has already helped turn that moral argument into a legal one. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark advisory opinion — sought by Vanuatu and driven in large part by Pacific youth advocacy — confirming that states have binding obligations under international law to protect the climate system, and that failing to act can amount to an internationally wrongful act. It is a ruling that Pacific climate negotiators are now carrying into every forum that matters.
But loss and damage are about more than rebuilding roads and power stations. It is about people losing homes, ancestral land, cultural heritage and, in the case of communities facing relocation — as some in Fiji already are — the chance to remain safely in the places that define who they are. Moving a village is not simply an infrastructure project.
From Palau to COP31: Turning vulnerability into action
The 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting recently concluded in Palau with a strong reaffirmation that climate change remains the single greatest threat to Pacific peoples — and with important steps towards turning vulnerability into collective action.
Forum Leaders endorsed the Belau Declaration for Urgent and Inclusive Climate Action to Keep 1.5°C Within Reach, strengthened commitments on climate finance, renewable energy and the ocean-climate nexus, and backed the COP31 Pacific Partnership to carry a coordinated Pacific voice into global negotiations.
Importantly, Palau also pushed climate leadership beyond declarations. Leaders strengthened commitments to multi-hazard early warning and preparedness, recognised Pacific women’s climate leadership, supported improved SIDS access to the Green Climate Fund, and reinforced the region’s climate-justice advocacy following the historic ICJ Advisory Opinion.
For Nepal, still confronting the consequences of its Himalayan catastrophe, the message is particularly relevant: vulnerability may take different forms across mountains and islands, but collective leadership can turn vulnerability into diplomatic and legal influence.
The challenge now is to carry this momentum from Palau to COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, this November. With Australia leading the COP31 negotiations in partnership with the Pacific, and Fiji and Tuvalu hosting Pacific Pre-COP events, the region has an unusually direct opportunity to turn political leadership into global action including through the following four priorities.
First, finance resilience before disaster strikes. Investing in adaptation, resilient infrastructure and early-warning systems is far cheaper — in money and in lives — than rebuilding after the fact.
Second, make climate finance genuinely accessible. Pacific nations should not have to navigate labyrinthine funding systems, or take on new debt, to protect people from a crisis they did little to create. The test for any facility is whether money actually reaches communities, not how many funding mechanisms it establishes. The Pacific Resilience Facility — the region’s first Pacific-owned and Pacific-led financing vehicle, now moving toward full operation — is a concrete attempt to meet that test, and deserves the support to succeed.
Third, turn loss and damage from a promise into a functioning system. Finance must cover more than physical rebuilding; it must also respond to displacement, lost livelihoods and non-economic losses — cultural heritage and ancestral places — that cannot simply be replaced.
Fourth, treat knowledge and preparedness as resilience infrastructure in their own right. Climate science, hazard mapping, forecasting and community-based early-warning systems are what stand between a hazard and a catastrophe. Nepal’s tragedy is a stark reminder that information saves lives only when it reaches decision-makers and communities in time.
What success looks like
The challenge for the Pacific is to carry the momentum from the recently concluded 55th PIF Leaders Meeting in Palau into COP31 in Turkey. Success will ultimately be measured on the ground – whether finance reaches communities before disaster strikes, whether early warnings save lives, and whether loss-and-damage support enables recovery without deepening debt. The Pacific has shown that vulnerability need not mean powerlessness when countries speak with a strong and united voice.
That lesson reaches far beyond the Pacific. From the roof of the world to the atolls of the Blue Pacific, climate justice means turning collective leadership and global commitments into protection, resilience and hope for those most vulnerable and on the frontlines.
Miles Young is Director of the Human Rights and Social Development Division at the Pacific Community (SPC), based at its Regional Office in Suva, Fiji.
Bhakta Karki is a Nepalese national and Adviser – Knowledge Management with the Human Rights and Social Development Division based in Suva, Fiji. Many of his friends were directly affected by the 26 August 2026 glacial collapse and some remain missing as rescue and recovery efforts continue in Nepal.
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