Climate Justice: CBDR-RC, Loss and Damage & the Fight for Equity

GS III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation.

Context: Nepal’s August 2026 rock–ice avalanche and flash floods damaged infrastructure and disrupted nearly 10% of hydropower capacity, highlighting debates on climate justice, Loss and Damage and climate finance. 

Why is Nepal Raising the Issue of Climate Justice?

• Third Pole Paradox: Nepal contributes only around 0.1% of global GHG emissions, yet the Hindu Kush Himalayas, the “Third Pole”, are experiencing rapid warming, glacier retreat and increasing cryosphere-related hazards.
• Economic Vulnerability: The 2026 disaster damaged hydropower infrastructure, threatening Nepal’s strategy of becoming a regional electricity exporter and potentially increasing reconstruction costs and debt.
• Unequal Burden: Vulnerable countries argue that they should not bear the full financial consequences of climate impacts generated disproportionately by historical and major contemporary emitters.
• India’s Position: India supports Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), historical responsibility, climate finance and technology transfer, while also emphasising that this principle does not create automatic legal liability for climate disasters in neighbouring countries.

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About Climate Justice

• Climate justice views climate change not merely as an environmental problem but as an ethical, social and political issue, recognising that its costs are distributed unequally across countries, communities, genders, income groups and generations.
• Core Principle: It seeks fairness based on historical responsibility, vulnerability, capability and developmental needs, particularly for communities that contributed least to global warming.
• Four Dimensions:
  • Procedural: Fair participation, transparency and access to information in climate decision-making.
  • Distributive: Equitable sharing of the costs, benefits and resources of climate action.
  • Recognitional: Identifying and protecting vulnerable and historically marginalised groups.
  • Intergenerational: Ensuring present development does not compromise the interests of future generations, reflected in the Brundtland Report (1987).
• Just Transition: Climate action should ensure that the shift towards a low-carbon economy does not disproportionately burden workers, poor communities or developing economies.

Climate Justice- Key Dimensions and Regional Implications

• Loss and Damage: The Paris Agreement recognises averting, minimising and addressing Loss and Damage; the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, agreed at COP27 and operationalised at COP28, seeks to support vulnerable developing countries.
  • Loss and Damage: Climate-related economic and non-economic harms that remain despite mitigation and adaptation, such as loss of lives, livelihoods, infrastructure and ecosystems.
  • Loss and Damage Fund: International fund established to provide financial support to vulnerable developing countries facing climate-related losses and damages.
• Legal Distinction: Article 8 of the Paris Agreement does not provide a basis for liability or compensation, separating recognition of climate-related harm from automatic legal claims against individual emitters.
• Himalayan Cooperation: The crisis highlights the need for transboundary early-warning systems, hydrometeorological data sharing and coordinated disaster preparedness.
  • Hydrometeorological Data Sharing: Exchange of data on rainfall, river flows, snow, glaciers and weather to improve forecasting and disaster preparedness.
• Developmental Justice: Climate justice links climate policy with poverty reduction, gender equity, livelihood security, indigenous/community rights and sustainable development.
• Regional Security: Himalayan cryosphere changes can affect water availability, hydropower, agriculture and disaster risks across South Asia.

Key Challenges to Climate Justice

• Attribution & Liability: Establishing that a particular disaster was caused by anthropogenic warming, and then assigning responsibility to a specific emitter, remains scientifically and legally complex.
• Finance Gap: Existing Loss and Damage and adaptation finance remains far below the scale of developing countries’ requirements, while dependence on loans can deepen climate-related debt.
• CBDR Tensions: Developing countries stress historical emissions and developmental space, while developed countries increasingly seek stronger mitigation commitments from emerging economies.
• Development Trade-offs: Poorer countries must balance poverty alleviation, energy access and economic growth with decarbonisation.
• Implementation Gap: Climate justice also faces difficulties in ensuring meaningful participation of affected communities, equitable transitions and protection against displacement by climate or conservation projects.

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Way Forward

• Climate Finance: Scale up predictable grant-based and concessional finance for adaptation, resilience and Loss and Damage, while reducing debt dependence.
• Just Transition: Combine decarbonisation with worker protection, livelihood security, community participation and policy space for developing countries.
• Technology Transfer: Facilitate affordable access to clean-energy, storage, resilient-infrastructure and climate-monitoring technologies.
• Regional Cooperation: Build a Himalayan network for real-time glacier, rainfall, river and GLOF monitoring, particularly among India, Nepal, Bhutan and China.
• South-South Cooperation: Expand initiatives through which developing countries share affordable technologies, expertise and disaster-resilience solutions.
• Accountability & Participation: Strengthen climate governance through transparent decision-making, climate litigation where appropriate, scientific attribution and greater participation of vulnerable communities.

Conclusion

Climate justice means ensuring fairness despite unequal responsibility and vulnerability. Nepal’s case calls for moving beyond relief towards predictable climate finance, technology access, resilient infrastructure and regional cooperation, guided by CBDR-RC.

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