‘Justice, not aid; India, China, US have responsibility’: Nepal minister on floods

But, as Nepal struggles to recover after the disaster – the worst since the 2015 earthquake killed over 9,000 people and caused an estimated $10 billion in damages – Khanal said Kathmandu is ‘shifting its diplomatic framework from ‘aid’ to ‘justice and compensation”. Post-disaster assistance should be a matter of legal and moral liability and not ‘charity’, he told Kantipur TV.

Excerpts of the interview were carried by The Kathmandu Post.

“We are shifting our diplomatic framework from ‘aid’ to ‘justice and compensation’. This is not a matter of charity; it is a matter of legal and moral liability,” the Foreign Minister was cited as saying by the Nepali newspaper.

In the interview Khanal said India, China, and the US have a ‘historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal’.

The minister’s remarks seemed based on widely available data – including that published by the United Nations – that indicates the three countries produce a combined 45 to 48 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“The major industrial emitters – such as China, which is the world’s top emitter; the United States at number two; and India at number three – have a historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal,” he added.

However, India’s share of that is roughly seven to eight per cent. China’s contributions are an estimated 27 to 29 per cent, according to assessments by the UN Environment Programme and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Khanal said the country’s Ministry of Finance has dispatched a formal climate compensation claim to ‘international partners’. He, however, didn’t elaborate if the letter has been sent to the three aforementioned countries.

The remarks from the Foreign Minister comes at a time when Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah is under pressure from within the government and his Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) to lead the country’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and seek international support following the country’s worst flood disaster.

The government has urged the prime minister to use the UNGA forum to seek climate justice for Nepal, international support for post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction, and a stronger global response to protect the Himalayan ecosystem.