Nepal’s back-to-back disasters show that climate risk has moved out of the sustainability report and into the operating model. For business, the question is no longer only how much we emit, but how exposed we are, and how resilient the people and systems around us have become.

By the CeroED ESG Advisory Team  ·  October 2026  ·  7-minute read

A month of compounding shocks

On the morning of 26 August 2026, a vast mass of rock and glacial ice broke away from the Langtang Lirung massif in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, close to the border with China. It plunged into the Lhende Khola and unleashed a debris-laden flood that tore down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river systems for almost 100 kilometres. By late September, the confirmed death toll had passed 1,400, with more than 5,000 people still unaccounted for. The government’s preliminary estimate of damage and losses stands at roughly NPR 388 billion.

The economic footprint is as revealing as the human one. Hydropower plants, a customs post, bank branches and a key Nepal–China trade route lay in the flood’s path, and hundreds of hydropower workers were among the missing. A single slope failure, high in the mountains, cascaded within hours into energy, finance, trade and tourism.

Less than a month later, Nepal was hit again. Persistent rain from 24 September triggered floods and landslides across the country, blocking highways and forcing evacuations. On 27 September, after days of heavy snowfall, an avalanche struck the base camp of Himlung Himal in Manang district, killing at least two Nepali expedition workers and leaving others missing.

These events had different immediate triggers. But they unfolded against the same backdrop: a rapidly warming climate. That is the signal business leaders cannot afford to ignore.

THE NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
1,400+	Lives lost in the 26 August Bhotekoshi flood, with more than 5,000 people still missing (late-September reports)
NPR 388 bn	Preliminary estimate of damage and losses from the flood (NDRRMA, 4 September)
~1.5°C	Additional July–August warming in the region attributable to climate change (World Weather Attribution)
~100%	WMO probability that El Niño persists through February 2027
2×+	EU wildfire burned area versus the 20-year average by mid-August (EFFIS)

The science: what we can, and cannot, say

The Himalaya is one of the most climate-sensitive regions on Earth. Rising temperatures are accelerating glacier retreat, thawing permafrost and altering snow and ice cover. Together, these changes weaken high-mountain slopes and raise the potential for cascading hazards in which ice, rock, water and debris interact.

A rapid assessment by World Weather Attribution, carried out by 24 researchers from 14 institutions, concluded that human-caused warming helped precondition the August collapse. The team estimated that July–August temperatures in the region are now around 1.5°C warmer because of climate change, and that the freezing level in the Himalaya is rising by roughly 100 metres per decade. Crucially, the scientists did not attribute the collapse to climate change alone: the 2015 Gorkha earthquake had likely weakened the mountain’s rock structure years earlier.

That nuance matters. Responsible climate communication, like responsible ESG disclosure, depends on precision about evidence and honesty about uncertainty. The finding is not that climate change single-handedly caused the disaster. It is that warming is loading the dice in systems that were already fragile.

A global pattern, not an isolated event

Nepal’s experience fits a wider pattern. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) described July and early August 2026 as a period defined by record heat, drought, wildfire and deadly flooding. NOAA ranked July 2026 as the joint-warmest July on record, tied with 2024; Copernicus placed it joint second behind 2023. Either way, global sea-surface temperatures for July were the highest ever recorded.

Europe offered a stark illustration. Western Europe experienced its hottest June–July period on record, and wildfires in France and Spain forced more than 300,000 people from their homes in one of the continent’s largest evacuations in decades. By mid-August, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed that more than half a million hectares had burned across the EU, over twice the 20-year average, with France recording its largest burned area in modern records. Attribution scientists have linked the severity of the drought that fuelled these fires to human-caused warming.

El Niño raises the stakes

A further climate driver is now entering the picture. On 3 September, the WMO confirmed that El Niño is firmly established and expected to intensify into a very strong event, with a near-100% likelihood of persisting through February 2027. It was the first time a WMO El Niño update had been so unequivocal. The event is expected to peak towards the end of 2026, with impacts extending well into 2027.

El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon marked by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. It reshapes atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns worldwide, and has historically been associated with drier conditions across parts of South and Southeast Asia and Australia, and heavier rainfall in parts of the Americas.

The distinction is important: El Niño is natural; global warming is human-driven. Climate change does not create El Niño. But El Niño now plays out on a planet that is substantially warmer than in the past. When natural variability is layered on top of a higher baseline, the odds of record temperatures and extreme events rise. For organisations with operations, suppliers or customers in El Niño-sensitive regions, the next 12 months warrant heightened attention to heat, drought, water and flood risk.

Climate risk is business risk

For years, corporate climate conversations have centered on emissions: our carbon footprint, our Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory, our reduction targets. These questions remain essential. But they describe only one side of the climate equation. The other side is exposure and resilience.

Frameworks such as the ISSB’s IFRS S2 and the TCFD recommendations that preceded it already ask companies to assess physical risk alongside transition risk. In practice, that means recognising that an organisation can cut its emissions and still face material climate impacts:

• A flood or landslide can sever a supplier, a logistics corridor or an entire region.
• Drought and water stress can constrain raw-material availability and production.
• Extreme heat can reduce worker productivity and endanger health and safety.
• Wildfires and cyclones can damage assets and disrupt distribution networks.

A company’s climate footprint, in other words, cannot be separated from the climate vulnerability of the systems it depends on, and Nepal has just shown how quickly those vulnerabilities can cascade.

Who carries the responsibility?

Nepal’s disasters have also brought climate responsibility and climate justice back to the centre of the global debate. Nepal accounts for around 0.1% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, yet its communities and fragile mountain ecosystems are on the front line of climate impacts.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on 24 September, Prime Minister Balendra Shah presented the Bhotekoshi floods as a warning to the world and called on the international community to put climate justice into practice. He argued that this must extend beyond financial assistance to include distributive and procedural justice. Nepal has also been pressing for support through the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage.

“Climate justice cannot just remain a beautiful phrase in a United Nations document.” — Prime Minister Balendra Shah, UNGA, September 2026

The August disaster illustrates why. Roads, bridges, homes, livelihoods and clean-energy infrastructure were destroyed, setting back years of development. Climate disasters in vulnerable countries are not only humanitarian crises; they are development emergencies, and their costs ripple through the supply chains, investments and markets that connect us all.

From CSR spending to climate resilience

Corporate Social Responsibility has traditionally focused on education, healthcare, livelihoods, community development and philanthropy. These priorities remain important. But a changing climate raises a sharper question:

Are our CSR programmes helping communities become more resilient to the risks they increasingly face?

Answering it requires moving beyond counting activities to measuring outcomes and impact. This is where ESG, climate data and CSR converge. Climate data tells us what is changing; impact data tells us what that change means for people. A company may track its emissions and publish sustainability targets, but genuine climate accountability also asks: Who is exposed? What is vulnerable? What could be disrupted? Who would be affected? And can we measure improvement over time?

From climate reporting to climate accountability

The question for responsible businesses is shifting from “Are we reporting our climate impact?” to “Are we preparing for climate risk and building measurable resilience?” In practice, that means:

1. Measure emissions and environmental footprints with robust, auditable data.
2. Map physical climate risks across operations, suppliers and key logistics routes.
3. Identify the communities and value-chain partners most exposed to those risks.
4. Reduce emissions in line with credible, science-based targets.
5. Invest in adaptation, early warning and community preparedness, including through CSR.
6. Track the outcomes of social-impact initiatives, not just the money spent.

Nepal’s recent disasters are a reminder of why this matters. Climate responsibility must go beyond disclosure: for governments, through adaptation and climate finance; for communities, through preparedness; and for businesses, through resilient operations, resilient supply chains and CSR that delivers measurable change.

How CeroED can help

At CeroED, we frame this journey as Measure, Reduce and Sustain: helping organisations understand their environmental footprint, manage climate risk and connect sustainability initiatives to measurable outcomes.

Because climate responsibility is not measured only by what an organisation reports. It is measured by what becomes stronger, safer and more resilient because it acted.

Talk to our team

Email: info@ceroed.com

Web: www.ceroed.com

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