After participating in multiple events at Climate Week NYC and engaging with climate activists, scientists, policymakers, business leaders and journalists, I have come away with several observations that I believe Nepal and the wider Global South need to pay close attention to. The world is talking about climate justice. But at the same time, powerful parts of the American political and economic system are increasingly focused on securing resources, expanding energy infrastructure and winning the next race for critical minerals.
That contrast was impossible to miss in New York this week.
Climate Week has brought together global conversations around climate action, energy, capital and the transition to a lower-carbon economy. At the same time, the Trump administration has been pursuing policies intended to accelerate US access to critical minerals, including through deep-sea mining.
The Metals Company USA has submitted applications for both an exploration license and a commercial recovery permit for deep-sea minerals. The argument for deep-sea mining is closely connected to securing critical minerals and reducing dependence on China. But scientists and environmental advocates have raised concerns about the consequences of disturbing some of the least understood ecosystems on Earth.
Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, which hopes to become the first company to commercially mine the ocean floor, has argued that the environmental and human impacts of collecting these seabed minerals would be only a fraction of those associated with mining on land.
Echoing Barron’s argument, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, at one of the events I attended, defended continued fossil-fuel production and increased energy production, arguing that it was necessary to keep people alive.
That argument captures the extraordinary scale of the resource race now underway.
When countries and individuals are competing for more power and more resources, and that competition is no longer confined to land but is moving into the ocean, backed by enormous economic and political power, Nepal’s climate-justice conversation alone may not be enough to move our economy forward.
The broader lesson for Nepal is that the global transition is not only about reducing emissions. It is also increasingly about energy, resources, technology, infrastructure and economic power.
Our strategy therefore needs to be different.
Nepal needs to position itself not only as a country seeking climate justice, but as a key player capable of helping fuel the Global South’s future through sustainable energy.
That means we need to tell a bigger story about Nepal.
We need to position the Himalayas not only as a region at risk, but as a source of clean energy for a region whose demand for electricity is rapidly growing. We need to connect our climate diplomacy with our economic diplomacy. Connect loss and damage with clean-energy investment. And connect the urgency of protecting our glaciers with the opportunity to build a resilient, sustainable energy system for South Asia.
This is where the Global South’s climate conversation feels fundamentally different.
For countries like Nepal, the question is not about where the next supply of minerals will come from. It is about who bears the consequences of a changing climate, who benefits from the transition, and who gets to participate in decisions that shape the future.
The climate crisis is increasingly a question of power
That question of who benefits, who controls resources and who bears the cost also surfaced in another powerful theme I encountered in New York: the growing conflict around data centers and artificial intelligence.
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America is experiencing an extraordinary expansion of data infrastructure, bringing enormous demand for electricity, water and land. Across Climate Week, discussions repeatedly returned to the tension between technological growth and the environmental and social costs experienced by communities.
The question of clean drinking water also came through strongly in conversations around environmental justice, including through the work of Erin Brockovich, whose decades of activism have focused on contaminated water and the rights of affected communities.
At one of the events I attended, Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson framed the broader conflict in terms of a struggle between billionaires and everyone else.
Whether one agrees with that framing or not, it captured a question that repeatedly surfaced throughout the conversations I attended:
Who benefits from the transition? Who controls the resources? Who carries the environmental cost? And who gets a voice in deciding what happens next?
These are climate questions just as much as they are questions of economics. For Nepal, they also raise a broader question: how can a climate-vulnerable country ensure that it is not simply on the receiving end of decisions made elsewhere, but has a meaningful role in shaping the transition?
For me, Climate Week is also about ensuring that Nepal’s voice is present in these global conversations. I had the opportunity to speak with Jane Fonda and Erin Brockovich about Nepal and the climate crisis facing the Himalayas.
Jane Fonda warmly remembered her time in Nepal and spoke about her memories of the Himalayan region, including Kailash-Mansarovar. Our conversation also made me reflect on a question that is increasingly important for climate activism:
Activism can bring attention. But after we have people’s attention, what comes next?
That is perhaps one of the most important questions for Nepal. Jane Fonda’s own journey offers one example of how she has answered it.
Following years of protests, lobbying, petitions and civil disobedience, Jane Fonda Climate PAC was founded in 2022 with the objective of electing climate-conscious leaders at the state and local levels. Its stated mission is to challenge the influence of the fossil-fuel industry by supporting what it calls “climate champions.”
That evolution—from activism and public mobilization toward political and institutional engagement—is an important lesson for climate movements everywhere.
For Nepal, the lesson is that raising awareness about climate vulnerability must ultimately lead to stronger institutions, policy action, investment and international partnerships.
Nepal should not remain a country that the world remembers only when glaciers melt, floods destroy communities or climate disasters make international headlines.
We need to build our next chapter ourselves, while building stronger partnerships with regions and countries that are also on the receiving end of climate change.
From climate victim to climate actor
This brings me back to Nepal’s own position in the global climate conversation.
Nepal is one of the countries highly vulnerable to climate change. But vulnerability should not be the only story we tell.
The Himalayas are not merely victims of climate change. They are central to South Asia’s water security, ecosystems and energy future.
Nepal also has enormous clean-energy potential, particularly in hydropower.
And this is where I believe Nepal’s climate and economic conversations need to come together.
As the world enters an era of rapidly growing electricity demand driven by data centers, artificial intelligence, electrification and new technologies, the question of where that electricity comes from is becoming increasingly important.
One observation from a conversation I heard today came from UK Climate Minister Katie White, who highlighted another dimension of this energy challenge: electricity is becoming more expensive as countries invest in the infrastructure needed to expand and modernize their grids. She pointed to the additional costs being placed on electricity in the UK to help finance grid development and expansion.
That point is important because the clean-energy transition is not simply about generating more renewable electricity. It is also about building the transmission and distribution infrastructure needed to move that electricity to where it is needed—and ensuring that the cost of that infrastructure does not become another barrier to affordability.
This has direct relevance for Nepal.
Nepal has long dreamed of becoming a major clean-energy supplier to South Asia, particularly through electricity exports to India and, potentially, other regional markets.
But climate change is simultaneously making that ambition more complicated.
Hydropower infrastructure must increasingly be designed for a more volatile climate, including floods, landslides, glacial lake outburst floods and other hazards. Climate-proofing infrastructure will require greater investment, stronger standards and better climate information.
So Nepal faces a difficult but important equation:
We need the world to reduce fossil-fuel use and limit warming because our glaciers and communities are increasingly exposed to climate impacts. At the same time, we need to position Nepal to help meet South Asia’s growing electricity demand with clean power.
These two demands should not be seen as contradictory.
Nepal should be asking how its run-of-river hydropower and other renewable resources can become part of South Asia’s transition away from fossil fuels—while ensuring that the infrastructure, financing and cross-border transmission systems are resilient enough to withstand the climate risks that are already emerging.
And there is another lesson from the conversations in New York: clean power must also be affordable power.
If countries are struggling with the cost of expanding their grids and connecting new sources of electricity, Nepal needs to think beyond generation alone. It needs to think about transmission, storage, regional interconnection, climate resilience and the cost of delivering electricity to consumers.
Climate justice for Nepal therefore cannot only mean compensation for loss and damage. It must also mean access to finance, technology, resilient infrastructure and markets that allow Nepal to turn its clean-energy potential into economic opportunity.
We have been demanding accountability from those who have contributed disproportionately to the climate crisis. But we should also demonstrate what Nepal can contribute to the solution.
This means taking Nepal’s voice beyond traditional climate conferences and into the conversations where decisions are being made about energy, finance, technology, minerals, development and the future of South Asia.
The next phase must be political and institutional
All of this leads to another important lesson from New York: awareness alone is no longer enough.
The climate movement has been extraordinarily effective at bringing the crisis into public consciousness. But the next challenge is converting that attention into political pressure, institutional change, investment and accountability.
That means building climate constituencies. It means ensuring that climate policy is reflected in governance and public investment. And it means ensuring that communities affected by climate change have a meaningful voice when decisions are made about their land, water, energy and future.
For Nepal, this is an important lesson.
We need to move from telling the world that the Himalayas are in danger to demanding what the world should do about it—and demonstrating what we are able to do.
My time at Climate Week so far has reinforced my belief that Nepal’s climate diplomacy must become more ambitious, more visible and more connected to the larger global debate.
We need to tell the world not only what climate change is doing to Nepal, but what Nepal can do for the region’s clean-energy future.
Because ultimately, this is not only a conversation about climate. It is a conversation about power, resources, justice and the kind of future we choose to build.
Nepal’s climate diplomacy therefore needs to pursue two goals at once: holding the world accountable for the damage climate change is causing in the Himalayas, while demonstrating the value Nepal can bring to South Asia’s clean-energy transition.
And Nepal can and should have a voice in that choice.
The author is a media entrepreneur and a climate and clean-energy advocate
