The Road to COP31: Nepal's Fight for Mountain Survival and Climate Justice

When negotiators gather in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November for COP31, Nepal will arrive barely ten weeks after a devastating Himalayan tsunami. At the National Climate Summit in Kathmandu on 29 October, Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal set out Nepal's priorities: the mountain agenda, climate finance, loss and damage, and climate justice. The message behind them is simple: Nepal is not asking for charity. It is asking the climate finance system to work as promised.

A frontline reality
Nepal has contributed little to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it bears disproportionate losses from climate disasters. On 26 August 2026, an ice-rock avalanche from the slopes of Langtang Lirung unleashed a Himalayan tsunami down the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli corridor. More than 1,400 people have been confirmed dead across eight districts, and over 5,100 were still missing by mid-September. The rapid damage needs assessment by the NDRRMA, Government of Nepal estimates damage at USD 2.69 billion and recovery and reconstruction needs at USD 4.71 billion.

What Nepal is asking for?
Predictable, grant-based adaptation finance. Nepal is calling for adaptation finance that is predictable and grant-based, not loans that add to its debt. COP30 agreed to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035. The test for COP31 is whether that pledge reaches mountain communities. A loss and damage fund that works at the speed of disaster. Nepal wants a fully operational and adequately funded Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), and its case has become the fund's first real test. In September, the FRLD approved USD 20 million for Nepal under its Barbados Implementation Modalities, based on proposals submitted before the flood. After Nepal's emergency appeal of 31 August, the board held its first-ever extraordinary meeting on 22 October and provisionally set aside a further USD 20 million (USD 21.6 million with oversight fees). Nepal must still submit a funding proposal, which the board is expected to consider in December. Against reconstruction needs of USD 4.71 billion, that is under 1%, and some developed countries argued the decision should be treated as an exception rather than a precedent.

Protect the clean energy already built. A rapid damage and needs assessment found 13 hydropower projects and five solar projects damaged, including the Nuwakot Solar Power Project. Rebuilding the energy sector alone is estimated at NPR 390 billion. Clean energy built to cut emissions was wrecked by the climate impacts it was meant to help prevent, which is why resilient reconstruction of clean energy belongs in COP31's just transition talks.

Civil society speaks with one voice
On 27 October, a join civil society position paper prepared by more than 100 civil society organizations, handed the governmentwith 25 demands spanning climate justice, loss and damage, accessible finance, protection of mountains and the cryosphere, adaptation and just transition.