The monsoon is back, bringing another series of disasters. According to the Department of Roads, five major highways are completely blocked across Nepal this week, with dozens of other road sections partially disrupted. The BP Highway connecting Kavrepalanchok and Sindhuli, a critical chokepoint linking eastern Nepal to the capital, is barely passable. Farmers in the Terai are anxious as the rain arrives late, leaving the soil harder for the next yield. One thing that remains common across these disasters is that there is no track record of data.

A few weeks ago, I was standing on the flooded bank of the Nakhu Khola in South Lalitpur with climate scientists from across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, including glaciologists, hydrologists and economists. We examined the visible evidence of climate change and observed a clear shift in the pattern, place and timing of rainfall that led to the 2024 floods. The historic Tika Bhairav temple, which stood since the Lichhavi era, was relocated.

There is no doubt that Nepal’s loss and damage is visible. The question is: How do we track and compile the evidence into a credible case? This matters because the available climate fund is not enough for mitigation and adaptation, and other countries that are bearing the brunt of climate change are queuing up with equally strong claims. The Global Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) was created to address economic and non-economic irreversible losses from climate change, for those affected the most. However, only $800 million has been pledged by the world’s largest emitters despite the dire need. More strikingly, 176 proposals have already arrived from 119 countries, with claims 11 times more than what is on the table. Every country is competing on the strength of the evidence it has gathered.

Nepal’s share of global emissions is a mere fraction of what its two neighbours, India and China, release in a single afternoon. Emissions do not respect boundaries, and glaciers are melting fast. Our rivers are flooding communities and farmers are losing harvests to a crisis largely manufactured elsewhere. The Loss and Damage fund exists precisely to bridge this asymmetry. Nepal has every right to compensation, but asserting it requires evidence.

Natural disasters have cost Nepal nearly $7 billion in cumulative damage in the past four decades. Every time, it is the community and families that bear the biggest burden of loss. The 2021 Melamchi flood caused an average loss of $52,000 per affected household, yet the government’s average relief payment was only $380. This is not an issue of funding alone but a clear sign of policy failure. Without systematic records, communities are provided with no evidence of climate losses that they rightfully owe.

The 2024 glacial flood in Thame burst devastated a Sherpa village in Khumbu that had stood for generations. In less than a year, a transboundary flash flood wiped away the Rasuwagadhi Friendship Bridge, which served as one of the important trade links with China. Nepal’s EV sector, growing as part of the country’s clean energy transition, took a direct hit too: our recent research using Nepal’s own customs data found the flood disrupted EV imports at a critical moment, exposing how climate risks can unravel mitigation efforts from the outside.

Despite millions in damage, the losses have not been compiled in any data system that could be referred to as a reference in future reconstruction efforts.

The non-economic losses, such as the loss of lives and livelihoods, displacement, destruction of cultural heritage, and long-term environmental impacts, are not even talked about. Nepal’s NDC 3.0 has quantified only physical infrastructure losses, at roughly $345 million. A country with Nepal’s disaster record should be at the front of the compensation queue. Instead, it keeps arriving at global climate summits without the paperwork to match its losses. What goes uncounted inevitably goes unclaimed.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) runs a national hazard and damage-reporting portal called BIPAD. Its Forecast-Based Financing under the Anticipatory Action Framework releases cash to vulnerable households before floodwater arrives. But other than alerting you when to run, it tells you nothing about what was lost, what it was worth, nor whether the place you ran from should be rebuilt in the same spot.

So where does Nepal actually start? This June, Kathmandu Metropolitan City did something long overdue. It mapped 128 flood-prone locations and found over 8,000 households living at risk. This kind of granular local evidence is a good start for building the case for Loss and Damage financing. For the next step, these maps must be documented meticulously and converted into river embankments, relocated schools and ward-level evacuation plans before the next flood arrives. Only then can we build the evidence base for a future funding claim. Above all, the data must be shared across the sector so that climate risks are integrated in future development projects.

The Loss and Damage Fund is different from other climate funds that require multiple agencies, and aspires to reach communities directly. The data work, and the political will to do it, must start at the local level. The constitution has provided Nepal’s 753 local governments a strong legal mandate for disaster risk reduction. The challenge they face is the technical capacity to translate a hazard map into a tangible policy decision. The newly formed Green Climate Fund (GCF)-accredited national entities, such as the Town Development Fund, are already positioned to anchor local data tracking. What is still missing is a designated national authority with a clear mandate to manage and channel Loss and Damage funds when they arrive. A federal agency such as NDRRMA, which is already engaged in early warning and disaster response, could be ideal for the national coordination role.

It is not that Nepal has not engaged in climate policy. It was the first country to introduce climate budget tagging, but the issue lies in spending. Climate change recorded the lowest budget utilisation of any sector in FY2024-25. Systematic loss documentation needs its own dedicated budget line, not a token tag on someone else’s allocation. The case from Bhutan shows what happens when done patiently. A decade of quiet hydromet monitoring unlocked a $40 million disaster-resilience facility the country can draw on the moment a disaster strikes. The money always follows the data. Nepal is already a priority country in the global push to deliver Early Warnings for All by 2027, and warning is its clear strength. But warning and evidence are not the same achievement. What is required is the discipline to count what Nepal has already lost, and the institutional will to turn that count into a claim before the next funding window closes.