"You cannot warm yourself by the fire and curse the one who lit it." - old hill proverb
Nepal is still counting its dead. The flash floods and landslides that tore through the country's hills and valleys last week has claimed more than 1250 lives as more than 4000 are still missing. They have wrecked homes, washed out roads, and left a scar that will take a long time to heal. In the aftermath, Kathmandu has done what a lot of climate-vulnerable nations now do: pointed a finger outward. Specifically, at China, India and the United States the world's three largest emitters and floated the idea that these countries owe Nepal compensation for the damage.
It's an understandable impulse. It is also, on closer inspection, a fairly foolish one.
Skewed logic.
The argument goes something like this: these three countries burn the most fossil fuels, so they've done the most to warm the planet, so they should pay when a warmer planet floods Nepal's rivers. Clean and simple.
Except Nepal isn't a bystander to the industrial world it wants to bill. It's a customer. A happy, enthusiastic, deeply dependent customer.
