A climate change disaster in Nepal is Australia’s problem too

0:00This Saturday episode of New Politics was released on 5 September, 2026, and produced on the lands of the Wongal and Gadigal people. How many climate disasters do we need to see before political leaders admit the emergency is already here? And why are the countries least responsible for climate change paying the highest price? The floods in Nepal are exposing a global crisis and the widening gap between Australia's climate rhetoric and climate action. I'm Eddie Jockovich. I'm David Lewis. All of this is coming up in this big episode of New Politics. And if you're listening in and haven't subscribed to our website at New Politics, you're missing out on half of what we do. There's regular articles and analysis of this strange world of politics. It's all free and you can subscribe at newpolitics.com.au.

1:00And of course if you do want to support us it's just five dollars per month of Patreon and Substak. And all of this is a good way to support independent journalism. Can a straffit flash flooding hits the Nepal China border? Yeah, that is a little bit more. My family members were swept away by the flood in front of my eyes. Nepal's Glacier tsunami. That's how officials are describing the sheer scale of the flooding disaster. That wall of water and mud racing down the valley. By the hour the number of did is rising. They were talking about the water level that rose by 15 meters. The videos of the disaster are absolutely terrifying. There are families of those who are missing,

2:00who are gathering, who've been waiting for any information they can find. Officials are anticipating this is one of the worst disasters since the 2015 earthquake. It's a race to save lives right now. The disaster has flood that have occurred all across Nepal and Tibet show that if there was any doubt at all about climate change and climate emergency well that's been totally dispel. Now there was a massive avalanche caused by melting Glaciers and it was a collection of rocks, water and ice that came plunging down one of Nepal's largest mountains and it was a flood that continued for about 100 kilometers has killed well over a thousand people and I think there's around 4,000 people missing and that includes around 40 Australians who were in the region at the moment. Scientists are suggesting that rising temperatures are melting all of that frozen ground that keeps the Himalayan together meaning that we're likely to see more of these disasters taking place in the region. Now there's also a geopolitical factor to all of this.

3:05Nepal has got something like 0.01% of all global emissions but is bearing the full brunt of everyone else's industrial activity but climate change and global warming it's an issue that affects everyone in the world including Australia but the small and steady incremental changes that have been implemented by this federal government and so many governments around the world are just going far too slow and more radical changes need to be made not just by this government but all governments all around the world. I think it was John Birmingham who said it's always shocking to watch mass murder and that's what we were watching because there were the group of industrialists who refused to acknowledge that climate changes are thing and watch things get worse and worse and it's led to this. This wasn't the first environmental disaster. South Pacific has lost islands over the last 30 years too it's not been a recent thing it's been over a while. Islands where people have lived for hundreds and thousands of years are now gone because they've sunk.

4:09Switzerland had a large ice wall melt and I think it was again Birmingham who pointed out that because it was Switzerland and they were wealthier and had access to the technology able to get everybody out in time so it was just property damage and not the thousands of lives that Nepal has lost. Of course our press focuses on the Australian backbackers who were lost and that's a tragedy. I don't want to make lighter that either but it's no greater a tragedy than the locals who were killed. No less either but it just shows that our press would rather put the white people in the center of it rather than just say this is a human disaster. This is a disaster not just for Nepal but for the world because unless things change rapidly and it may be too late now there were people saying we have to fix this by 2025. That was last year and it hasn't been fixed and we're now starting to see in even more impactful ways what's happening partly too we can go back to yesterday's

5:11podcast and talk about the problem with incrementalism and managerialism the radical reforms needed to stop this stuff aren't happening because governments and business are too scared and too timid or to set in their own ways to do anything. The footage is horrifying and so quick too and Nepal's not the country that should have been punished but that's how it is. All that tribe but also nature doesn't choose where these things are going to happen as well and it happened in Nepal it's happening quite a few other parts around the world as well and the prime minister Anthony Almanese he was asked about whether the world shares responsibility for the disaster in Nepal and whether this is all about climate change and his response was that there would be time later on to talk about the science and he didn't think that now was the time to talk about climate change I think I've heard this somewhere before David I think it was the same response given by

6:13Scott Morrison now's not the time to talk about climate change and also by former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berajiclin now's not the time never is the time now's not the time to talk about climate change it never seems to be any time at all to talk about these issues but climate change we can see with our own eyes this is the biggest cause of these floods in Nepal it's all about climate change and whenever these sorts of events happen it's the same familiar response there's all the condolences thoughts and prayers with the family that sort of stuff and that's a given day but of course you're going to give your condolences and be thinking about families but as a political leader you can't just dismiss the reasons behind it and the Napali leaders they've had no hesitation at all when they've been asked is climate change behind this they've clearly instantly they've said yes this is the cause of climate change this is what's happening what else could it be and it's clearly because of climate change issues and the growing instability of the Himalayan environment there is that bigger issue as well it's a geopolitical issue as I

7:17mentioned before Nepal contributes very little to global emissions 0.01% but just like the Pacific islands which is where Elbanese was visiting this week well they are the ones that face the biggest consequences of global warming and it's no wonder that Elbanese didn't want to talk about it and Australia is one of the biggest contributors to world emissions on a per capita basis but it's also a silent contributor because a lot of opponents of all of this climate change action they're saying oh well Australia doesn't actually contribute that much to it it is one of the biggest contributors on a per capita basis but it's also a silent contributor because it exports a lot of this raw product to other countries so then go and process that that adds to global warming and it contributes to incidents such as the floods in Nepal yeah and one of the most crossed things that has ever happened was I think Peter Dutton joking about water lapping at Pacific Islanders feet so don't tell me that they don't think it's

8:18happening and I know that there's the lame are but nature changes nature changes over thousands of years or hundreds of years not in the 150 years it's appalling that we've got to this and it shows up people who aren't interested in a future but uninterested in the legacy either and that's what's always defeated me surely you'd want to be remembered as the person who fixed it not the first person who continued it there's also that issue about glacial loss like not just in the Himalayan although that's the biggest problem but the way that this is all happening is to change quite dramatically and as bad as this was it's surprising that such an event hasn't occurred earlier and Nepal's glaciers have almost lost the third of their volume over the past 30 years 30 years ago was 1996 and glaciers across the entire Hindu Kush region have been losing their ice at twice their historical rates since 2000 so that's 26 years ago and this

9:19disappearing ice ice has got to go somewhere just doesn't disappear it becomes water and the this volume of water is going to create all there's more risks of rock falls and avalanches and then the result of this is the flooding which is what happened this week and you're a historian David it just seems like we do not learn from history and all of this was predicted well over 40 years ago 40 50 years ago and it's not just the polar regions in the north and the south the Himalayan regions got this largest concentration of frozen water outside of the polar regions the problem is not just the north and the south but you know you've got virtually no one living in those regions and but in the Himalayan region but there's around two billion people that live within the scope of the Himalayan region so it's not just a water problem or an environmental problem as bad as all of that is ultimately will become a big social and political problem like it is a big social and political problem now but it's going to become even bigger than what it is now not just

10:20for that region but for the entire world and it's like we're just not learning from the history we're not even learning from the present at what point do world leaders say enough is enough now I remember when there was another shooting in the state and Barack Obama was highly frustrated because he wanted to change the gun laws and he couldn't but at what point is even the most rabid free enterprise right winger have to acknowledge hold on there's something wrong here I suspect usually when it's too late I mentioned my mylo yinappalus yesterday and how he was anti-immigration and pro using ice in the states to get rid of illegal immigrants till he found himself on the wrong side of the law now he's changed his mind it's the same thing with the environment when the beach houses start sliding into the sea and you can't prop the cliff up anymore with scaffolding when the the beach gets too hot or too cold to swim in when it starts to affect your

11:26day-to-day life because you can't go to the areas you used to go to when you're ultra wealthy the sad thing is that that's when they might start to think about stuff sad things is it'll be way too late we're looking at the potential fossil lives of I think 10 million people are going to die because of the effects of the latest El Nino which is the most brutal one since 7 E90 or 7 E92 which of course led to crop shortages which led to food shortages that led to frustrations with the government in France and led to the French Revolution now that's a complicated that's a complicated result but how many of our extremely wealthy want a revolution like that I should think just about none because the first lot to lost their heads in that revolution were the extremely wealthy I'm not saying that's what we should do by the way but history always repeats as Mark said the first time is tragedy the second time as fast this is new politics independent analysis of Australian

12:33and international politics for more free articles and analysis join us at newpolitics.com.au I love got a solution to all of these problems why don't we set up another annual forum to discuss all of these problems and never do anything about it that could be one solution and that's been one of the biggest problems there's been all of these forums or forer over the past 30 35 years they meet annually there's all these roundtable discussions a lot of stuff is talked about but it's never acted upon and the prime minister is currently in the region on one of these forums he's in the he's on the island of Palou that's just above Papua New Guinea PNG but Pacific nations they're saying

13:34the same thing to him they've been saying repeatedly the climate change is their biggest security threat and Australia will be judged by its Pacific neighbours ultimately by what it does about this threat rather than what it says at these kinds of regional meetings I think this is the second one that Elven Easy has been to this year and there's also that inherent contradiction here David because Australia presents itself as an essential security partner in the Pacific or at least it wants to be seen as that while it remains a major fossil fuel exporter and continues to improve new coal and gas projects that will all add to climate change and that cannot be denied so that action it actually weakens Australia's credibility with the Pacific region and it also opens up those countries to get better support or more support from China even though China is actually one of the biggest creators of the missions in the world but at least they're trying really

14:34not as you can try and they are implementing all of these programs to reduce emissions so we're just have to see how all of this plays out geopolitically so there is a contradiction overseas and the way that Australia presents itself to its Pacific neighbours but there's also a contradiction going on domestically David where the Elven Easy government says that you know keep saying that Australia is going to be this renewable energy superpower and here's what Elven Easy said just a couple of years ago Australia needs to be ambitious we must be optimistic we can create more jobs here we can be a renewable energy superpower for the world and working with the private sector is what we are doing but the problem is David that he started saying all of this stuff about renewable energy superpower he started saying that four years ago 2022 and I know that good things take good time but we're still waiting for this renewable energy superpower we're still waiting

15:35yeah and but during this time that we've been waiting for the renewable energy superpower fossil fuel expansion continues emissions reductions still remains a major challenge it's not clear at this stage whether Australia is going to reach that emissions target for 2030 I think it's sort of very line ball but that's less than four years away and Australia is already receiving its own physical warnings about climate change there's been all those floods those 100 year floods that we're getting once or twice a year there's all those extreme heat events and worsening bushfire conditions so the question is no longer about whether the government understands the risk their government they should be able to understand these risks just like everyone else in the community does it's just how they reconcile those risks with the economic development and the fossil fuel interests that they continue to support Australia is one of the sunniest countries in the world we've got the the light in the southern hemisphere is different to the light in the northern hemisphere and we get a

16:39higher percentage of ultraviolet rays or something we should be have big battery plants out in the outback and just fill them up until those batteries to overseas filled with solar power which is cheaper and of course then the power becomes free in Australia we're no longer paying directors fees to in New South Wales anyway to retail companies who have done nothing except that an extra step in in the supply of electricity and in the supplier petrol whose fees really just go and pay the directors of the companies who were able to route their way into Australia should be a world in this type of stuff and of course the big argument is we're not the biggest to me it might be per capita but we're still very small but every little bit helps and sometimes leading by example united states could do the same thing there's whole swathes of Africa that could do the same thing and whole swathes of Asia that could do the same thing up in the Mongolia region of China there's massive deserts that goby and those where they could set up and they probably have solar

17:45panels with the sole aim of generating free or at least cheap energy and Australia could be a part of that but they'd rather not offend mining interests and old industry the best businesses thrive in adaptation we seem to have forgotten that somewhere instead business he argues against innovation and change preferring stagnation and stability there are now comparisons that are being made between Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison and I know that proposition is going to be offensive to a lot of our Labour Party listeners and supporters but these comparisons are being made in the way that they do respond to difficult questions about climate change that that message now is not the time that's an old political formula to say well shut the fuck up we don't want to talk about that but this is a government that partially wrote into office not the only reason but it was a good reason for how it got into office back in 2022 on being able to differentiate itself through

18:50climate change action and the way that I see it at the moment is that gap between the rhetoric and the reality is just becoming much greater and it's becoming harder to reconcile those differences this is coming at a time when the government wants to rapidly expand AI data centers which will use up a lot of energy and also they're approving a lot of new fossil fuel projects as well and a lot of this is the is a thing that we constantly refer to within not just today's episode but with a lot of our podcast episodes a lot of this comes back to the missed opportunities when Labour came into office they promised a different approach to climate change and energy ensure there's been a little bit of that here and there but it's just not enough and governments have got the potential and they've got the ability not just the potential but they've got the ability to create a lot of change but after four years it just hasn't been enough of it hasn't been enough on renewable energy

19:50hasn't been enough action on climate change and that's why we talked about it before that's why they're having a lot of trouble dealing with the one nation's surge because when people are asking well how are you different from the Liberal Party well they can say well not much really not that much different to the Liberal Party and they just haven't done as much as they could not just on climate change but and renewable energy but it just a whole lot of other issues as well and that's the frustrating part of this process yeah it's not how you build a lasting legacy and in all fairness it's hard to control your legacy but if you do the right thing eventually people catch up we can look at the Truman government in the states which was considered terrible and Truman left with one of the worst personal ratings ever 30 years down the track in the 70s and the 80s people so actually there was some real success that you can also look at um I don't think we'll be saying that about the Trump administration in 30 years time no in in Australia you can look

20:56at the whole government which was seen as or the got sorry gotten government which was seen as chaotic but gotten starts funding the arts he starts a sainer foreign policy that he was a personal disaster in many ways didn't take away from his own achievements as prime minister he won't go down as one of the top three prime ministers or anything like that but he'll be remembered better some of that is of course context when you compare the chaos of the other government abit or especially Morrison governments to the gotten government court and seems like a model of dignity and stability but there's achievement there interestingly enough the Howard government seems to be slowly dropping some in estimations as the longer term effects of some of the Howard policies are starting to be seen including ridiculously high house prices a crushed rental market these can all be traced back to the Howard government so I don't know why I do know why and they want to be

22:00in for a long time and that's fine but there's no point in being in for a long time if the planet's there's no point in being in for a long time if you can't walk away with solid and major achievements I think we're in a crisis of governance in that everybody's too scared to act everybody wants to be in government but they don't want the responsibility of having it and I think that's got to change that's it for this episode of new politics thanks for listening in and if you value independent journalism without the influence of corporate backing join new politics at newpolitics.com.au and support us directly it's just five dollars per month and we always try to keep it very simple if you like what we do please send some support out way it keeps our commitment to independent journalism ticking along I'm Eddie Jockovich thanks for listening in and it's goodbye to our listeners I'm David Lewis we'll see you next time

23:04and so