The United Nations climate convention’s Loss and Damage Fund has set aside $21.6 million for Nepal towards addressing the damage from the Bhotekoshi floods that ravaged the country in August.
The decision, taken at an extraordinary meeting by the Fund’s Board on Thursday (October 22, 2026), is the first time that the Fund has earmarked money for a specific country to remedy damage from climate change. However, the funds still constitute a tiny fraction of the $5 billion in economic losses the country has self assessed. On August 26, a climate-induced ice-and-rock avalanche in Nepal set off a debris flow and flooding along the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli-Narayani river system. The Nepal government puts initial recovery and reconstruction needs at a minimum of $4.71 billion. On August 31, Nepal’s Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, and Agriculture, Forests and Environment Minister Gita Chaudhary wrote to the Board’s co-chairs. The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, was established at COP27 in 2022, with its operational mechanism agreed at COP28 the following year.
They asked it to “take a special decision to respond rapidly, directly and effectively. It is meant to help vulnerable developing countries respond to economic and non-economic losses from climate change.
The letter said that Nepal, a least developed country, contributes negligibly to global emissions yet bears escalating climate impacts, and that the full extent of losses was still to be determined.
It comes weeks before the 31st UN climate conference, COP31, opens in Turkey next month.
