Shreejana Pokhrel Siwakoti
Last week, while commemorating the International Earth Day, a special event organized by Sath-Sathai as a prelude of Sagarmatha Sambad, offered me a precious opportunity to travel up to Thame and spend time in the Everest region. I spoke with world renowned climbers, ministers, Sherpa families, village elders, youth leaders, and local government officials who had witnessed the immediate and long-term impacts of the 2024 glacial lakes outburst flood that hit the area with enormous damage to the alpine ecology and property. What I heard was heart-breaking but also profoundly clear: while the international community discusses climate change in diplomatic forums, these communities are already paying the price in silence, and often alone.
Their stories underscore the urgency of climate reparations. The path forward must be rooted in justice through restitution, compensation, satisfaction. And as Nepal prepares to host the upcoming Sagarmatha Sambad, this moment offers a critical opportunity to move from dialogues into action.
As Nepal prepares to host the upcoming Sagarmatha Sambad, a global dialogue platform symbolizing our collective commitment to peace, justice, and environmental stewardship, one critical idea must be placed firmly on the agenda and it’s the time for climate reparations. At a time when the world’s most vulnerable nations are bearing the brunt of a crisis, they did little to cause, thus, discussions about climate change must go beyond mitigation and adaptation. They must bring justice to the centre stage and include reparations to the loss and damage.
If Sagarmatha Sambad truly aims to foster meaningful dialogue on the climate crisis and sustainability, it must create space to address the historical and ongoing responsibility of major polluters to compensate those who have suffered and continue to suffer irreparable harm.
Climate Reparations Matters
Climate crisis is not only an environmental issue; it is an existential threat to communities, cultures, and economies. For countries like Nepal which are already grappling with melting glaciers, erratic weather, and increased natural disasters, the costs are catastrophic and rising.Yet Nepal’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is negligible.This is the injustice at the heart of the climate emergency.
Climate reparations recognize that certain nations and corporations have disproportionately caused global warming, while others particularly the Global South face the worst consequences. Reparations are a call for responsibility, accountability, and redress. They demand that those historically responsible for emissions contribute to repairing the damage and supporting resilience efforts in frontline states.It is not charity. It is justice.
Sagarmatha Sambad As the Right Platform
Sagarmatha Sambad is uniquely positioned to bring climate reparations into mainstream global dialogue. As a neutral, moral voice from a climate-vulnerable nation, Nepal can bridge divides and help set a transformative agenda rooted in fairness, dignity, and shared humanity.This aligns perfectly with the Sambad’s objectives namely, global solidarity towards building partnerships between countries suffering the worst impacts and those capable of providing redress, sustainable development ensuring that climate finance addresses not only future adaptation but also present and historical losses and lastly, justice and equity to affirm that sustainability without justice is no sustainability at all. Nepal, standing at the roof of the world, with a treasury of giant water towers, can invite the world’s conscience to rise higher too.
Agenda for Discussion
To make climate reparations a serious item of global discussion, Sagarmatha Sambad should include among other, acknowledgement of loss and damage by recognizing irreversible harms that cannot be addressed through adaptation alone including displacement, cultural loss, and ecological devastation.Similarly, fair financial commitments should ensure a clarion call for dedicated climate reparations funds, distinct from existing aid or development assistance.Centering vulnerable voices is critical to prioritize indigenous communities, least developed countries and small island developing states in all discussions.Innovative legal frameworks are instrumental to exploring international legal obligations for reparations under human rights law, environmental law, and international equity principles.
Without confronting the reparations question head-on, any dialogue on climate change risks becoming hollow. There is no better platform than Sagarmatha Sambad to raise the issue of climate reparations. As climate impacts intensify, the gap between those responsible for the crisis and those suffering its worst consequences grows dangerously wide. Without addressing historical accountability and the right to reparation, any discussion on climate justice remains incomplete and dull. Sagarmatha Sambad, rooted in the symbolism of the world’s highest peak and dedicated to promoting just, inclusive solutions, must confront this hard truth: the climate crisis is a justice crisis. By putting reparations on the agenda, Nepal can spark a necessary global reckoning one that insists that real climate action must also mean real climate accountability.
Nepal’s leadership in raising climate reparations is not only a moral imperative it is a responsibility grounded in its international commitments. As a nation acutely vulnerable to climate change, Nepal has consistently advocated for climate justice at the UNFCCC, particularly through the Loss and Damage agenda at recent COP summits also calling for mechanisms that recognize irreversible harms suffered by affected communities. This forum provides a timely and credible platform to deepen this advocacy, bridging diplomatic positions taken at COPs with action-driven global dialogue at home. By prioritizing climate reparations in the Sambad, Nepal can amplify its voice, honor its pledges to vulnerable populations, and help push the global conversation from vague promises to concrete obligations.
Leadership Moment
Nepal has long been a quiet sufferer of climate change. It is time to also be a strong voice for climate justice. By championing climate reparations at Sagarmatha Sambad, Nepal can offer the world a fresh, courageous perspective that real sustainability is impossible without redress and healing the earth must also mean healing the human relationships fractured by decades of environmental injustice.
In conclusion, the glaciers of the Hindu Kush Himalayas are alarmingly melting. The downstream rivers are changing course. The mountains themselves are bearing witness. Nepal must speak from this reality and speak for those with no platforms from which to shout. Justice, solidarity, and reparation must be the pillars upon which the world builds its climate future. Let that future be envisioned at Sagarmatha Sambad to create a wider corridor for further climate action.
Adopted from myrepublic.com—Editor
