The catastrophic Nepal–Tibet floods are not just another distant natural disaster. Triggered by the collapse of glacial ice and rock high in the Himalayas, the resulting torrent travelled through the valley below, destroying communities, roads, bridges and hydropower facilities. More than 1,250 people have been confirmed dead, over 4,200 remain missing and dozens of Australians are still unaccounted for.
Scientists are still examining the sequence of events, but the danger is very clear. Rising temperatures are melting glaciers, degrading permafrost and destabilising the frozen ground that helps hold Himalayan slopes together. Climate change does not need to be the sole cause of every avalanche or flood to make these disasters more frequent, more destructive and more difficult to predict.
The political response is painfully familiar. Prime Minister Albanese has concentrated on condolences, rescue efforts and support for affected Australian families – which, of course, he should do – while resisting the calls to discuss the climate change issues surrounding the disaster. And it’s the formula used by Scott Morrison and other political leaders after floods and bushfires: now is not the time to discuss climate change.
But if climate change cannot be discussed when the risks are so visible, when exactly is the right time?
Nepal contributes only a tiny fraction of global greenhouse-gas emissions, yet it carries an extraordinary share of the consequences created by the industrial development and fossil-fuel consumption of wealthier nations. This is climate injustice in its starkest form: those least responsible are often the first to lose their homes, livelihoods and lives.
The rapidly changing Himalayan environment is also a global security issue. The region contains the largest concentration of frozen water outside the polar zones and supports river systems upon which almost two billion people depend upon. Accelerating glacial loss threatens not only mountain communities but water supplies, food production, energy infrastructure, migration patterns and political stability across a vast part of Asia.
For Australia, the disaster exposes a fundamental contradiction. The Albanese government wants to present Australia as a renewable-energy superpower and an indispensable security partner to Pacific nations, even as it continues approving new coal and gas projects and expanding fossil-fuel exports. Pacific leaders have repeatedly identified climate change as their greatest security threat. Australia will therefore be judged less by its speeches at the Pacific Islands Forum than by the emissions and fossil-fuel developments it enables at home.
The government’s progress also remains far behind the scale of its promises. Australia’s emissions in the year to March 2026 were only 25 per cent below 2005 levels, leaving a substantial distance to travel before reaching Labor’s legislated target of a 43 per cent reduction by 2030. At the same time, the proposed expansion of energy-intensive AI data centres will add further pressure to an electricity system already struggling through a difficult renewable-energy transition.
The question is no longer whether governments understand the danger. It is why, despite everything they know, they continue protecting the economic interests that are making that danger worse.
