KATHMANDU, Sep 26: Prime Minister Balendra (Balen) Shah has proposed a trilateral Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism involving Nepal, India and China, seeking joint action on one of the region’s most urgent challenges: how to monitor rapidly changing Himalayan hazards and provide timely warnings to communities downstream.
Addressing the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Shah proposed that Nepal, India and China share satellite data and technical expertise, jointly monitor vulnerable glacial lakes, strengthen early-warning systems and coordinate cross-border emergency response during disasters. He argued that the Himalayas should become a laboratory for international cooperation rather than a boundary of fragmented information.
The proposal comes less than a month after devastating floods in Nepal’s Himalayan region and at a time when growing glacier and glacial-lake risks are increasing concerns about disasters that can rapidly cross national borders.
The logic behind the proposal is straightforward. Climate-related hazards do not respect political boundaries. A glacier collapse, landslide, glacial-lake outburst or extreme rainfall event in the high mountains can generate floods that travel downstream across borders.
But turning Shah’s proposal into a functioning mechanism will be considerably more difficult than announcing it at the UN.
The biggest challenge is diplomacy. India and China already have arrangements for sharing some transboundary river information, but these mechanisms are limited in scope and are largely focused on hydrological information rather than comprehensive, real-time Himalayan hazard monitoring.
Under the India-China Expert Level Mechanism on Trans-Border Rivers, China has provided India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej during flood seasons. India's Ministry of External Affairs has described the arrangement as involving the exchange of hydrological information and cooperation on transboundary river issues.
The existing arrangement demonstrates that cooperation is possible, but also shows its limitations. It does not constitute a basin-wide system for jointly monitoring glaciers, glacial lakes, landslides, snow and ice conditions, river flows and downstream hazards in real time.
Hydrological data sharing and glacier-data sharing are also not the same thing. A comprehensive Himalayan resilience system could potentially involve satellite observations, glacier mass balance, ice and snow conditions, glacial-lake changes, rainfall, river discharge, landslide risks and downstream infrastructure. Much of this information is currently collected separately by national agencies and research institutions.
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There is also a history of geopolitical tensions affecting China-India water cooperation.
In 2017, India said it had not received the hydrological data it expected from China under their bilateral arrangement during the Doklam standoff. China subsequently said its relevant monitoring station was being upgraded and that it was unable to collect the data at that time. While some scholars and analysts have linked the interruption to the deterioration in bilateral relations, the Chinese government gave technical reasons for the suspension.
A 2025 study by Anamika Barua, Tanushree Baruah and Sumit Vij, published in the Journal of Hydrology, found that changing geopolitics and hydropolitics have contributed to a status quo in China-India interactions over the Brahmaputra basin. The study also concluded that post-2017 border tensions had deepened the trust deficit and complicated future water negotiations.
This history illustrates the difficulty Shah’s proposal faces. Satellite imagery, hydrological information and high-resolution geographic data have obvious humanitarian and scientific value, but some categories of information can also have strategic implications for states with unresolved territorial and security concerns.
“Climate change does not recognise borders, but diplomacy does,” said climate change expert Manjeet Dhakal, highlighting the gap that could emerge between the political ambition of the proposal and its technical implementation.
He said Nepal would need intensive diplomatic engagement with both neighbours to translate the proposal into a functioning mechanism.
“A lot of homework and diplomatic effort is needed for this,” Dhakal said.
Glaciologist and climate change expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha said the main difficulty was not technology but politics.
“On the face of it, the leader’s speech looks great, but a lot of bureaucratic readiness and follow-up is required at both the bureaucratic and political levels to get it moving,” Shrestha said.
He pointed to Nepal’s past experience of announcing cooperation with China on climate change and disaster management without developing it into a substantial operational mechanism.
The proposal therefore raises an important institutional question for Nepal itself: does the country have the diplomatic and technical machinery necessary to convene India and China around a mechanism of this sensitivity?
Nepal does have one potential advantage. It is directly exposed to Himalayan hazards and has a humanitarian and scientific interest in reducing disaster risks across the region. It could therefore seek to position itself as a convener and facilitator rather than as a party to the strategic competition between its two larger neighbours.
But that role will require considerably more than a diplomatic declaration.
Who would host the mechanism? Who would finance it? What information would be shared, and at what level of resolution? Would India and China exchange information directly or through a Nepal-based platform? Who would issue an emergency warning? Would the mechanism cover only natural hazards, or also river-flow information with broader geopolitical sensitivities? How would disagreements over data be resolved?
“These are not merely technical questions. They are the substance of diplomacy,” say experts familiar with regional climate and water cooperation.
Former director general of Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology Kamal Ram Joshi said Nepal should begin with practical areas where cooperation is easier, rather than attempting to establish a large institution immediately.
He suggested joint satellite monitoring, common weather forecasting for adjoining areas and systematic development of early-warning systems.
“Nepal can bridge the differences between China and India through such a mechanism,” Joshi said. He suggested that Nepal’s foreign minister write formally to his Indian and Chinese counterparts to initiate discussions on establishing the proposed mechanism.
The proposal could therefore begin with a small, functional framework and gradually expand as confidence develops. Joint monitoring of selected high-risk glacial lakes, sharing of selected satellite observations, common protocols for extreme-weather information and coordinated emergency communication could provide possible starting points.
China and India already possess sophisticated satellites, hydrological networks, glacier-monitoring capabilities and early-warning technologies. The missing element is not necessarily technology but a trusted institutional arrangement through which relevant information can be exchanged despite strategic differences.
For Nepal, the next step is therefore to turn the UN proposal into a concrete diplomatic and technical roadmap.
Shah has put the idea on the international table. The credibility of the proposal will now depend on whether Nepal’s bureaucracy, scientists and diplomats can determine what can realistically be shared, build confidence with both neighbours and persuade India and China to participate.
The Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism may have begun as a powerful political message at the UN. Its real test will be whether it can become a working system before the next major Himalayan disaster.
