Climate Scholar Horton Links Nepal Disaster to Global Emissions Inaction
“How terrible is the reality faced by Nepal, which accounts for less than 0.02% of global carbon dioxide emissions? They are not responsible for the disaster.”
“We know the problem and the solution. We just need to act. If we don’t, you will keep inviting scientists like us to explain the issue on broadcasts. As a scientist, I feel immense frustration because we’ve been talking about this for decades.”
Benjamin Horton, a British climate scholar and Dean of the School of Energy and Environment at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, expressed intense frustration on August 28 (local time) during an Al Jazeera interview. He criticized the international community’s sluggish response to recurring climate disasters like heatwaves, heavy rains, and snowstorms. Horton, who received the Oxford Medal—the highest honor at the Asia-Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) in July—warned that current climate changes have pushed humanity to the brink of the planet’s boundaries, the conditions necessary for survival on Earth.
During the broadcast, Horton compared the recent Nepal glacial flood disaster to a “nuclear explosion,” stating, “If we fail to address climate change, 70–80% of glaciers will disappear within 25–50 years. They won’t melt gradually but will collapse suddenly, causing massive events in vulnerable regions like Nepal.” Responding to the host’s remark that investigations into the disaster’s cause are ongoing and that a direct causal link between global warming and the Nepal floods cannot yet be confirmed, Horton rebutted, “I want to be more honest about connecting this disaster to climate change,” challenging cautious perspectives.
Horton analyzed, “We’ve emitted greenhouse gases from the fossil fuel industry for decades, raising global temperatures. However, temperatures in the Himalayan highlands have risen twice as fast as the global average. Over the past decade, the melting rate of Himalayan glaciers has doubled, and they’ve lost 12% of their surface area.”
Regarding ongoing extreme weather events—heatwaves in Europe and the Americas, heavy rains in Asia—he explained, “Increasing greenhouse gases raise temperatures, melt ice, and trigger disasters. We must fundamentally ask, ‘How likely would this event have been without human-induced climate change?’” He added, “In the most extreme disasters—floods, landslides, or heatwaves—we repeatedly find that they would have been nearly impossible without climate change.”
Horton repeatedly raised his voice in frustration. He pointed out that the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850–1900), has become ineffective since 2024, stating, “The disasters we see in the Himalayas are consequences of exceeding that limit.” He emphasized, “While predicting when and where climate disasters will occur is complex, the relationship between increased carbon dioxide and rising temperatures is simple.”
He noted, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models developed in the 1990s are remarkably sophisticated and have predicted every single outcome. The solution is also simple: reduce dependence on carbon dioxide, protect ecosystems that absorb it, and scale up technologies to remove it from the atmosphere.”
China, the U.S., India, and Russia—the top four carbon-emitting countries—account for over half of global emissions. Nepal ranks 95th. U.S. President Donald Trump announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement during his first term in 2017. Though the U.S. rejoined under the Joe Biden administration, it withdrew again after Trump’s re-election in 2025. Trump and the MAGA faction dismiss climate change as a “hoax” fabricated by the left.