Countries across Asia and the Pacific are facing increasingly complex climate risks, including more frequent and intense extreme events, accelerating cryosphere change, and growing exposure of people, infrastructure, and economies to cascading hazards. While efforts to limit peak warming and reduce vulnerabilities continue, recent scientific assessments indicate that exceeding the 1.5°C global warming threshold is now widely considered unavoidable in the near term, requiring countries to prepare for an "overshoot" period marked by heightened climate impacts.1 In this context, the devastating Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster in Nepal provides a critical opportunity to examine how governments, scientific institutions, and development partners can strengthen resilience and cooperation in an emerging era of cascading climate and cryosphere risks.
Triggered by a large rock-ice avalanche event in the high Himalaya, the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster in August 2026 caused extensive loss of life and severe damage to transport networks, hydropower facilities, border infrastructure, and local livelihoods.2 Although similar cascading disasters have occurred in recent years, the scale of this event was unmatched. While investigations into specific drivers continue, the event highlights broader trends that are increasingly evident across mountain regions. Changes in the cryosphere, extreme precipitation patterns, and mountain hydrology are creating new interconnected, cascading risks that can trigger impacts far beyond their points of origin.3
The Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster was not only a national tragedy; it is also an urgent warning of the new risk landscape emerging in a world exceeding 1.5°C of warming, reinforcing the need for more robust risk assessment, enhanced monitoring systems, and stronger risk governance at all levels.
This Regional Dialogue builds on the Sagarmatha to the Sea: A Call to Action for a Climate-Resilient Future special high-level meeting during the eighty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2026. It will provide a platform to examine the implications of emerging climate and mountain risks for resilience-building across Asia and the Pacific. It will also facilitate the exchange of lessons from the experience of Nepal while supporting a broader regional discussion on how countries can anticipate, monitor, and manage cascading and transboundary risks in an era of climate overshoot.