Over the past decades, South Asia has been struck by a relentless chain of extreme weather events- 2015 and 2014 heatwaves in India to Nepal’s 2024 floods, Bangladesh’s repeated cyclones, including Amphan (2020), Sitrang (2022), Mocha (2023), each leaving deeper scars than the last. These are no longer isolated or one-off events; extreme weather has become a frequent and escalating reality. Days are getting hotter, storms intensify without warning, monsoons behave unpredictably, and seasons no longer arrive as expected. Hence, Outdoor work- which sustains millions of households, has become increasingly unsafe and for South Asia, this risk is widespread as more than 80% of workers are a part of the informal economy, meaning most people earn their living outdoors, without social protection, safety standards, or climate safeguards. This is not a temporary disturbance; it is now the new reality for much of the South Asian Communities.
As temperatures in South Asia break records year after year, it is the poorest and most marginalized- farmers, construction labourers, porters, and street vendors who are paying the highest price. In Nepal, rising heat waves, erratic monsoons, and melting glaciers are not abstract signs of a warming planet; they are the lived reality of thousands who depend on nature for survival. Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global emissions, yet is among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, ranked 4th globally, and 69th most affected by climate-related extreme events. A recent media summary (2025) stated that glaciers in the HKH are retreating 65% faster between 2011–2020 compared to the previous decade.
Climate crisis is certainly a daily reality of lost income, failing crops, unsafe heat and eroding dignity, particularly for the least protected and most exposed communities. What makes this reality harder to accept is that those bearing the heaviest losses did not cause this crisis. People who have contributed almost nothing to global emissions- are being forced to rebuild their homes, health, and livelihoods again and again. Recent Oxfam findings show that the richest 0.1% emit as much carbon in a single day as the poorest 50% do in an entire year. It is this profound inequality- between who caused the crisis and who is paying for it, that is now uniting the Global South behind a renewed call as the world prepares for COP30: Make Climate Polluters Pay.
For decades, fossil fuel giants have made record profits from the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas- fully aware of the harm their emissions would cause. Yet, the burden of loss and damage continues to fall on the street vendors selling under scorching heatwaves, waste pickers wading through flooded streets and construction workers labouring without shade or protection. The link between fossil fuels and human suffering is no-longer theoretical, it is measurable. Fossil fuel driven air-pollution claimed 1.72 million lives in India and new scientific attribution shows that emissions from the ‘Carbon Majors’, are responsible for roughly half of the increase in heatwave intensity since pre-industrial times. The same companies driving lethal heat and toxic air are still profiting, while those least responsible are paying with their lives, livelihoods, and futures.
A Crisis Reshaping Work, Homes, and Daily Life
We often hear leaders speak about “ambition”, “adaptation”, and “resilience” – but what do these words mean for people living one heatwave, one flood, or one cyclone away from losing everything? To understand the true cost of this crisis, we must look at where it is felt most directly. The frontline of the climate crisis is not at global summits or in corporate boardrooms but it is in the everyday spaces where people earn, care, and survive. Extreme weather is changing not only how people work, but whether they can work at all.
Across South Asia, outdoor workers are among the first to feel the impact. As per a study by Lancet– In India alone, 191 billion potential labour hours were lost due to heat exposure in 2022- What does a “lost workday” really mean in this context? For a street vendor, a construction worker, or a waste picker, it is not just an inconvenience- it is a lost meal, unpaid rent, or medicine that can no longer be afforded.
In Nepal, the 2024 floods and landslides caused massive agricultural losses, over $6 billion worth of crop damage and the death of more than 26,000 livestock, pushing many families deeper into debt. The 2021 Melamchi flood in Sindhupalchok, driven by intense rainfall and glacial melt, wiped out homes, bridges, and water infrastructure, displacing over 6,000 families. As high-altitude lakes like Imja and Tsho Rolpa expand due to warming, the risk of a single glacial lake outburst flood threatens to erase decades of progress. In Kathmandu, rising temperatures and air pollution have increased water scarcity and disease, while informal settlements along riverbanks face flooding each monsoon.
For fisher communities, across Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, rising sea level and unsustainable conditions have made it harder to venture out to fish, reducing both catch and income. Delivery and gig workers- now essential to urban life, ride through dangerous heatwaves and sudden cloudbursts, often without shade, rest breaks, or insurance. As extreme weather intensifies, a difficult question emerges: What does “resilience” really mean for workers who are one climate shock away from starting over again? For families already living on the edge, one flood, one storm, or one heatwave can erase years of progress.
The economic cost and who should pay?
South Asia is paying a climate bill it did not create. While families are forced to rebuild again and again, the economic system that caused this crisis remains largely unchanged.
South Asia is losing billions each year to climate impacts- not as isolated disasters, but as a structural drain on national economies. Between 2012 and 2024, Climate-related disasters in Nepal cost approximately $367 million, diverting funds away from health, education, and social protection. In India, extreme weather disrupted food systems, energy supply, and urban productivity– revealing how climate shocks ripple into inflation, unemployment, and public debt.
Bangladesh faces mounting reconstruction costs after cyclones and floods, often financed through loans that deepen national debt rather than relief.
Meanwhile, the profits that fuel this devastation continue to accumulate elsewhere. The fossil fuel industry has contributed over 70% of industrial carbon emissions since 1988, continuing to profit from pollution while externalising the costs. The CO₂ emissions of just five major oil and gas companies since 2015 are estimated to have caused over USD 5 trillion in global economic damages – costs now falling on outdoor workers, small farmers, informal settlements and public budgets in the Global South. (Analysis shared with Greenpeace International by Prof. James Rising, University of Delaware, and Dr. Lisa Rennels, Stanford University, using Carbon Majors Database and Social Cost of Carbon methodology.)
These losses are not accidental, and they are not “natural”. They are the price of decades of delayed action, denial, and profit-driven extraction by fossil fuel companies. Frontline communities are paying for a crisis they did not create- while those who caused it continue to profit. The injustice is clear: the bill is at the wrong doorstep.
Why COP30 Must Deliver More Than Promises
The establishment of a Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 was a historic step, but progress has been slow and insufficient. Pledges remain far below what vulnerable countries require to rebuild and recover. More importantly, current funding conversations still shy away from the core truth: the responsibility lies with those who caused the crisis.
As the world heads to COP30, the loss and damage mechanism must be grounded in justice. This requires a decisive shift in both narrative and action: fossil fuel corporations must be held financially accountable for the harm caused by their emissions; climate finance must come as grants, not loans that push vulnerable countries deeper into debt; and support must reach those most affected through a community-centered framework that is accessible, transparent and locally led- especially for informal workers, women and marginalised groups who are rarely visible in global finance debates. Crucially, the protection of outdoor and informal workers must be recognised as a core pillar of climate justice, with governments ensuring heat-safety safeguards, social protection and resilient livelihood support.
Nepal’s shrinking glaciers, vanishing seasons, and rising disasters are not isolated tragedies, they echo across South Asia. The region’s message ahead of COP30 is clear: the corporations that fuelled this crisis to pay their dues so that our communities can rebuild with dignity, safety, and hope.
