By Lidy Nacpil
First published on Bangkok Post
When 110 million cubic metres of rock and ice tore from the slopes of Langtang Lirung in late August, the resulting 110-mph wall of freezing mud did more than destroy settlements along Nepal’s Trishuli River and take thousands of lives.
It laid bare the devastating human cost of continued global climate inaction — and brought into sharp focus the questions of responsibility, accountability and reparations for climate destruction.
This week, as world leaders assemble in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Himalayan tragedy will reverberate through the halls of the UN. Delegates gather under the shadow of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and the UN resolution adopted to advance its implementation.
Nepal is seeking an initial $20 million from the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage while pressing the international community — and particularly major greenhouse gas emitters — to accept responsibility for the escalating destruction confronting the Himalayas.
That US$20 million (666 million baht) represents only a fraction of Nepal’s recovery needs, preliminarily estimated at $4–5 billion.
More fundamentally, the disaster raises questions extending far beyond emergency assistance and Loss and Damage finance: who bears responsibility for climate destruction suffered by countries and peoples that contributed little to creating the crisis — and who should be paying reparations for the harm they have suffered?
The first scientific study of the disaster confirms what frontline communities have long experienced: more than a century of greenhouse gas pollution from capitalist industrialisation has profoundly altered conditions in the Himalayas.
Researchers found clear fingerprints of human-induced warming in processes destabilising the mountain environment. These changes acted upon already fragile geological conditions, contributing to the catastrophic rock-and-ice collapse and floods that have killed more than 1,400 people and left some 5,700 missing.
The Himalayas have warmed by roughly 2C since pre-industrial times, while the freezing threshold has risen by about 100 metres per decade, accelerating glacier retreat and thawing high-altitude permafrost. Rock avalanches of this magnitude are extraordinarily rare, with an estimated frequency of roughly once every 1,000 to 10,000 years.
Beyond the immense human, physical and economic destruction, these impacts carry profound legal ramifications. In its landmark Advisory Opinion, the ICJ affirmed that states have binding obligations under treaty and customary international law to protect the climate system from significant harm caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. States must exercise stringent due diligence and take all necessary measures within their capabilities to prevent significant environmental harm.
These obligations extend to the state as a whole and require governments to regulate activities under their jurisdiction or control, including those of private corporations. The court made clear that a state’s failure to exercise the required due diligence and take appropriate measures within its capabilities to protect the climate system constitutes a breach of its international obligations and an internationally wrongful act. Such failures can include inadequate regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and state conduct relating to fossil fuel production, exploration licences and subsidies.
Crucially, the ICJ affirmed 1.5C as the primary temperature benchmark under the Paris Agreement. High-emitting states can no longer treat Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as matters of unfettered discretion or argue that the Paris Agreement is the only applicable rulebook on climate change. States are also subject to obligations under customary international law, human rights law and other applicable legal regimes.
The ICJ’s application of the law of state responsibility to climate change has enormous ramifications. Where a state is found to have breached its international climate obligations, it is required to cease the wrongful conduct, provide assurances and guarantees of non-repetition, and make full reparation.
For countries such as Nepal, which contributed only a tiny fraction of historical global emissions yet face catastrophic climate impacts, this significantly strengthens the legal basis for accountability and reparations. The UNFCCC had already established differentiated responsibility, based on equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, as well as developed countries’ obligations to provide financial resources to developing countries. Yet developed countries have repeatedly failed to act at the scale these responsibilities and obligations require.
The ICJ opinion further strengthens the legal foundations for accountability by clarifying how the law of State responsibility applies when international climate obligations are breached. It reinforces the case that developed countries’ longstanding climate finance obligations should be understood not as aid or charity, but as part of fulfilling reparative obligations arising from responsibility for climate harm.
The immediate test is whether these legal findings will now be translated into political action. The UNGA resolution calls upon states to comply with the obligations identified by the Court and sets in motion a UN process to advance compliance, including through the UN secretary-general’s mandated report to the General Assembly in 2027.
Declarations can no longer substitute for action, and excuses can no longer be allowed. Behind every discussion of temperature thresholds, emissions pathways and international obligations are communities losing lives, homes, livelihoods and ecosystems. Governments gathering in New York must do more than express solidarity with Nepal. They must translate the emerging architecture of international climate law into real accountability and the fulfilment of obligations: adequate public and non-debt-creating climate finance; a rapid, equitable and just transition out of fossil fuels; the accelerated build-up of renewable energy; protection and restoration of forests, lands and ecosystems; respect and fulfilment of human rights; and reparations for climate harm.
Lidy Nacpil is the coordinator of Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD).