2025 Was the Hottest Year Ever. 2026 Is on Track to Be Even Worse. Nepal Feels It Too.

2025 was the hottest year in recorded human history. Scientists had been warning this was coming for decades. It came anyway.

2026 is on track to continue the trend. Average global temperatures have now been above pre-industrial levels for long enough that extreme weather events — floods, droughts, heatwaves, glacial melts — are no longer rare. They are becoming the norm.

For Nepal, this is not abstract. It is playing out in the mountains, the rivers and the fields.

Nepal's Himalayan glaciers are among the most climate-sensitive on earth. Studies have shown they are retreating at accelerating rates. When glaciers melt, the short-term effect is increased water in rivers — which contributes to flooding in summer. The long-term effect is the opposite — rivers that fed by glaciers will carry less water as the glaciers disappear, affecting agriculture and water supply for millions of people downstream.

The 2026 monsoon has been officially forecast as below average by Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. This follows 2025's unusually active pre-monsoon season but potentially drier main season. For farmers in Lumbini, Karnali and Madhesh — the regions that grow most of Nepal's rice — this is a direct economic threat.

Nepal contributes almost nothing to global carbon emissions. The country produces less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gases. And yet it is consistently ranked among the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world because of its geography — high mountains, seismic activity, dependence on glacial and monsoon water.

The countries that created this problem are mostly not the ones suffering its consequences first. Nepal suffers them first. That is a fact worth saying clearly.