Nepal floods were 'a warning to the world,' prime minister tells UN

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah has told the United Nations that last month's catastrophic floods in the country were a "warning to the world" of growing climate risks in the Himalayas. According to Shah, a warming climate is destabilizing the fragile Himalayan ecology, melting permafrost and glaciers, and accelerating hazards.

The floods, triggered by a high-altitude glacial mountain collapse, resulted in over 1,400 deaths and 6,000 people still missing, with economic devastation in the billions of dollars, as reported by the New Straits Times.

Shah and Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal urged the international community to help bear the cost of adapting to climate change, as Nepal cannot build resilience alone against a crisis made worse by the failure of global governance. Khanal also noted that Nepal has contributed negligibly to the breakdown of the global climate system, with over 90% of its electricity coming from hydropower and over 70% of new cars sold being electric.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Korea Times, New Straits Times, France 24, Malay Mail — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.