Rich nations are handing Nepal a climate crisis bill it can’t afford

Work to rebuild trade routes destroyed by catastrophic flooding in Nepal has begun, with a new bridge across the Tadi River that the Nepali Army is calling the “bridge of hope.”

Nepal will need a lot of it, as the country starts digging itself out of a disaster-related economic crisis that government officials estimate will cost a least $5 billion in reconstruction receipts alone.

What the headline number doesn’t account for, experts said, is the knock-on impacts from losing critical infrastructure the country depends on for travel and transporting goods.

“This flash flood, it is not a single-sector disaster,” Nischal Dhungel, a non-resident fellow at the Nepal Institute for Policy Research who writes about Nepal’s economy.

“Its effects run through farms, power plants, trade corridors, tourism, business, insurance, linking household losses to national economy recovery.”

Several major nations have already pledged humanitarian and financial assistance to Nepal, including the US, China and India.

But part of Nepal’s plea for more global aid stems from concerns that extreme flooding will become more common as climbing temperatures melt ice caps in the Himalayas. Scientists believe the recent event was caused by a huge glacial collapse that triggered a landslide.

Experts are still working out what role climate change played in the disaster, but rising temperatures are destabilizing Nepal’s glaciers and frozen mountain slopes.

Nepal’s leaders have made it clear they’re assigning some of the blame for the disaster – and the responsibility to pay for it – on larger countries that generate far more than Nepal’s 0.1% share of global emissions.

And they’ve already requested $20 million in compensation from a United Nations fund made to assist developing countries hit by climate-related losses.

“Nepal’s contribution is extremely low, yet we are among those bearing the consequences of the problems created by those emissions,” Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said in an interview with Nepali media.

“In this regard, Nepal must stand firm and make this an issue of justice at the international level.”

While the damage is concentrated within a few valley districts in central Nepal, the uncertainty around reconstructing those economic corridors, exacerbated by climate change, could drag on the country’s growth for years.

If global warming continues at pace, Nepal could lose roughly 4% of its GDP by 2050, according to World Bank analysis.

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“There is now a strong narrative among Nepalese that the country is paying the price of a climate crisis it did very little to create,” said Soniya Rijal, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney who studies community responses to extreme events.

The possibility of subsequent floods also complicates reconstruction efforts, by raising the costs of disaster resilience, financing and insurance for new infrastructure in the widening danger zone .

“This rebuilding carries paradoxical pressures between being fast and cost-effective, and being slow enough to build resilience,” Rijal said. “It’s so difficult even in the normal situation when you try to build all these things. As we are facing cascading disasters, it becomes even harder.”

Sudip Bhaju, a director with the Nepal Economic Forum, an economic policy think tank, said heightened standards for infrastructure following the floods will likely make future construction more expensive.

The growing risks of climate change could double the cost of rebuilding compared to what was lost, he said. And some projects like hydro dams may be permanently shelved, hindering Nepal’s ambitions to diversify its economy by exporting energy to neighbors like India and Bangladesh.

“We are waiting for another time bomb, right?” he said. “So, the biggest question here is, how are we going to build?”

Miles from the path of Nepal’s deadly flash flooding, Bhaju is already starting to see its economic reverberations in the nation’s capital of Kathmandu.

Everyday essentials including fruits and vegetables have gotten 5-8% more expensive, according to Bhaju. The price of gas has risen as much as 36% outside official distribution channels, when consumers can get it, he said.

“If the government is not ensuring proper supply of gas to hotels, restaurants, then that’s definitely going to create a kind of a black market,” he said. “That is going to have a ripple effect on everything from transport to your daily goods.”

For many businesses in Nepal, the floods threaten to compound lingering pain from previous disasters and economic shocks.

Safal Prakash Shrestha/NurPhoto/Getty Images

After an earthquake in 2015 that killed 9,000 people and caused $10 billion in damage shuttered a major border crossing with China, much of the country’s trading activity moved north to Rasuwaghadi, one of the hardest-hit area of the recent floods.

But last month’s destruction marked the second time in less than two years that Rasuwaghadi was struck by climate-driven flooding.

Saloni Sethia, managing director at Vie Tec, a specialist building systems and construction supply company based in Kathmandu, said that her business was hit by both floods. With trade channels to China now constrained, she said it’s costing four times as much to hire drivers to deliver goods via the Korala border pass, with wait times undetermined, but growing. Switching to sea freight from the port city of Guangzhou adds three weeks to delivery.

“That uncertainty is a cost in itself,” Sethia wrote in an email to CNN. “Somebody pays for those extra three weeks. Either the importer’s margin or the customer’s price, usually both.”

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She said many businesses are also anticipating loan losses, delayed payments and squeezes on cash flow. As a supplier to some of the impacted hydro dams, Vie Tec has no realistic way to forecast when it might be paid.

The halt to trade and logistics also comes a few weeks before Dashain, a 15-day Hindu religious festival that significantly drives consumer spending and tourism annually.

Last year, economic activity from the holiday was dampened by large-scale student protests , Sethia said, and businesses that had hoped to recoup those losses this year bought goods on loan that were ultimately lost to the floods.

Foreign visitors could be discouraged from visiting Nepal as well, impacting an industry that accounts for about 7% of the country’s GDP and more than one million jobs. Past shocks such as the 2015 earthquake and the 2025 Gen Z protests were followed by a 26% and 18% drop in foreign arrivals respectively, according to the Nepal Economic Forum.

“That is how a corridor event becomes a national one,” Sethia wrote. “Businesses that were never near the water end up carrying part of the loss, and there is no line for that in any reconstruction estimate.”

尼泊尔遭受灾难性洪水袭击后，重建贸易路线的工作已经开始，一座横跨塔迪河的新桥拔地而起，尼泊尔军队称之为“希望之桥”。

尼泊尔将需要大量资金，因为该国正开始从与灾害相关的经济危机中恢复过来，政府官员估计，仅重建收入一项就将耗资至少 50 亿美元。

专家表示，主要数字没有考虑到的是，失去该国赖以出行和货物运输的关键基础设施所带来的连锁反应。

“这场突发洪水并非单一部门造成的灾难，”尼泊尔政策研究所非常驻研究员、尼泊尔经济研究专家尼沙尔·杜格尔 (Nischal Dhungel) 表示。

“其影响波及农场、发电厂、贸易走廊、旅游业、商业、保险业，并将家庭损失与国民经济复苏联系起来。”

包括美国、中国和印度在内的几个主要国家已经承诺向尼泊尔提供人道主义和财政援助。

但尼泊尔呼吁全球提供更多援助的部分原因在于，人们担心随着气温升高导致喜马拉雅山脉冰盖融化，极端洪灾将变得更加频繁。科学家认为，最近发生的洪灾是由一次巨大的冰川崩塌引发的山体滑坡造成的。

专家们仍在研究气候变化在这次灾难中扮演了什么角色，但气温上升正在破坏尼泊尔的冰川和冻山斜坡的稳定性。

尼泊尔领导人已明确表示，他们将这场灾难的部分责任——以及为此买单的责任——归咎于那些排放量远远超过尼泊尔（尼泊尔在全球排放量中仅占 0.1%）的大国。

他们已经向联合国设立的援助受气候相关损失的发展中国家的基金申请了 2000 万美元的赔偿。

“尼泊尔的排放量极低，但我们却是承受这些排放所造成问题后果的国家之一，”外交部长希希尔·卡纳尔在接受尼泊尔媒体采访时表示。

“在这方面，尼泊尔必须立场坚定，并将此问题上升到国际正义层面。”

虽然灾害主要集中在尼泊尔中部几个山谷地区，但重建这些经济走廊的不确定性，加上气候变化的影响，可能会拖累该国的经济增长多年。

世界银行分析显示，如果全球变暖继续以目前的速度发展，到 2050 年，尼泊尔的 GDP 可能会损失约 4%。

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“现在尼泊尔人中有一种强烈的说法，认为该国正在为气候危机付出代价，而这场危机对尼泊尔几乎没有造成任何影响，”悉尼大学研究社区对极端事件反应的博士后研究员索尼娅·里贾尔说。

后续洪水发生的可能性也使重建工作更加复杂，因为不断扩大的危险区域会增加灾害抵御能力、新基础设施的融资和保险成本。

“重建工作面临着一种矛盾的压力，既要快速高效，又要足够缓慢以增强抵御能力，”里贾尔说。“即使在正常情况下，重建所有这些设施都非常困难。而当我们面临接踵而至的灾害时，难度就更大了。”

尼泊尔经济论坛（一家经济政策智库）的主任苏迪普·巴朱表示，洪水过后基础设施标准的提高可能会使未来的建设成本更高。

他表示，气候变化带来的风险日益加剧，重建成本可能比损失翻倍。一些项目，例如水电站，可能会被永久搁置，这将阻碍尼泊尔通过向印度和孟加拉国等邻国出口能源来实现经济多元化的目标。

“我们是不是在等待另一颗定时炸弹？”他说道。“所以，现在最大的问题是，我们该如何重建？”

虽然距离尼泊尔致命的突发洪水路径有数英里之遥，但巴朱已经开始感受到洪水对该国首都加德满都的经济影响。

据巴朱称，包括水果和蔬菜在内的日常必需品价格上涨了5%至8%。他还表示，在官方渠道之外，消费者能够买到的天然气价格上涨了高达36%。

他说：“如果政府不能确保酒店、餐馆的天然气供应充足，那肯定会滋生黑市。这将对从交通运输到日常用品等各个方面产生连锁反应。”

对于尼泊尔的许多企业来说，洪水可能会加剧此前灾害和经济冲击造成的持续痛苦。

萨法尔·普拉卡什·什雷斯塔/NurPhoto/Getty Images

2015 年的一场地震造成 9000 人死亡，100 亿美元的损失，并关闭了与中国的主要边境口岸，之后该国的大部分贸易活动转移到了北部的拉苏瓦加迪，这是最近洪灾中受灾最严重的地区之一。

但上个月的破坏标志着拉苏瓦加迪在不到两年的时间里第二次遭受气候引发的洪水袭击。

位于加德满都的建筑系统和建材供应公司Vie Tec的总经理萨洛尼·塞蒂亚表示，她的公司受到了两次洪灾的双重打击。由于通往中国的贸易渠道受阻，她说，现在通过科拉拉边境口岸雇佣司机运送货物的成本是原来的四倍，而且等待时间不确定，但还在不断延长。如果改用从广州港口海运，则需要额外三周的交货时间。

塞西亚在给CNN的邮件中写道：“这种不确定性本身就是一种成本。这额外的三周时间总有人要为此买单。要么是进口商的利润，要么是消费者的价格，通常两者都会受到影响。”

普拉卡什·马蒂玛/法新社/盖蒂图片社

她表示，许多企业也预计会面临贷款损失、付款延迟和现金流紧张的情况。作为部分受影响水电站的供应商，越特公司目前无法准确预测何时能够收到货款。

贸易和物流的停滞也发生在达善节（Dashain）前几周，达善节是为期 15 天的印度教宗教节日，每年都会极大地推动消费支出和旅游业的发展。

塞蒂亚表示，去年假期期间的经济活动受到大规模学生抗议活动的抑制，一些企业原本希望今年能够弥补这些损失，于是借购了货物，但这些货物最终都被洪水冲走了。

外国游客可能因此而减少前往尼泊尔的意愿，这将对该国旅游业造成冲击，该行业约占尼泊尔国内生产总值的7%，并创造了超过一百万个就业岗位。尼泊尔经济论坛指出，过去发生的冲击事件，例如2015年的地震和2025年的Z世代抗议活动，分别导致外国游客数量下降了26%和18%。

“这就是走廊事故演变成全国性事故的原因，”塞西亚写道。“那些原本不在水域附近的商家最终也承担了部分损失，而任何重建预算中都没有这部分损失。”