Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah used much of his speech at the recent UN General Assembly to warn of the growing threat of climate-related disasters in the Himalayas, recalling the devastating debris floods that struck his country in August.
But it was his ambitious proposal to bring together regional rivals India and China, alongside Nepal, to tackle these shared threats that drew particular attention.
Shah called for the creation of a Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism to strengthen cross-border disaster response and the sharing of scientific data and expertise in one of the world’s most environmentally fragile and geopolitically sensitive regions.
“Let the Himalayas become a laboratory of international co-operation rather than a frontier of fragmented information,” he said.
A senior official at Nepal’s foreign ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the proposal was still at an early stage.
“The PM’s proposal has given a political direction. Our ministry is working with other relevant agencies to put forward a preliminary framework which can be the basis for building common understanding,” the official said.
Neither India nor China has formally responded to the proposal. The BBC has contacted their foreign ministries for comment.