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Nepal’s catastrophic floods must be a wake-up call on climate action as death toll passes 1,000 warns Oxfam

  • A week on, search and rescue operations and humanitarian aid efforts are a desperate race against time.

  • Almost 4,000 people are missing, and some 50,000 people urgently need access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

  • Nepal produces just 0.1% of global emissions, yet communities are paying a devastating price as climate risks grow.

The catastrophic floods in Nepal are a stark warning of what a hotter world will mean for communities on the climate frontline and why governments and donors must invest now in climate resilience, adaptation and disaster preparedness, rather than waiting for the next disaster to strike, Oxfam has warned.

A week after the devastating floods, rescuers are still scrambling to reach people cut off by destroyed roads, bridges and landslides. Oxfam and local partners are racing to deliver life-saving assistance, but the scale of the destruction is making access to some of the worst-affected areas, particularly Rasuwa, increasingly difficult.

“Nepal contributes just 0.1% of global emissions, yet our communities are paying a devastating price as climate risks grow,” said Santosh Pandey, Oxfam in Nepal’s Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Management Lead.

“Nepal’s devastating floods should be a wake-up call for governments and donors. We cannot keep waiting for disasters to happen. In a burning world, climate shocks will become more frequent here and communities need the resources to prepare, adapt and become more resilient before the next disaster strikes.”

The Government of Nepal estimates that 10,000 households – around 50,000 people – require immediate access to clean water, toilets and hygiene, with thousands more in need of shelter and food.

Oxfam launched an emergency response a day after the floods struck. It is working with local authorities and partners in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading to reach some of the worst-affected communities.

The major flash flood on 26 August was triggered by a massive glacier collapse and ice-rock avalanche that blocked the Lhende Khola, 20km north of the Rasuwagadhi checkpoint. At least 1,000 people have been killed and 3,916 remain unaccounted for, while more than 50,000 people have been displaced or temporarily moved from their homes.

Nepal is highly exposed to floods, landslides and earthquakes. Climate change is adding further pressure through rapidly changing glaciers, snow and water systems and increasingly unpredictable extreme weather. The Himalayan region also faces growing risks from glacial floods in the years ahead.

Oxfam said far more investment is needed in climate adaptation, early warning systems, disaster preparedness and resilient infrastructure, particularly in countries that have contributed little to global emissions.

“The lesson from Nepal is clear: resilience saves lives,” said Pandey. “If we only fund the response after a disaster, we will always be one step behind. Communities need sustained investment to prepare for the shocks we know are coming.”

“But for now our focus must be on action – we are in a race against time to save lives and support everyone affected.”

He added: “We know that shelter, food and emergency hygiene kits are desperately needed. We are doing everything possible to reach the affected populations, but against such immense need, our contribution feels overwhelmingly small.”

Oxfam has deployed 200 hygiene kits and 1,000 water purification tablets to Rasuwa and distributed water, sanitation and hygiene and food assistance in other affected communities.

It is also preparing to scale up its response over the next six months, aiming to reach 2,000 households – around 10,000 people – with life-saving assistance including WASH, shelter, protection and cash support.

But Oxfam warns that emergency relief alone will not protect Nepal from the next shock.

“Nepal needs international solidarity now, but it also needs investment for the future,” said Pandey. “Climate action must become a priority, not an afterthought.”

Ends

For more information and interviews, please contact

Notes to editor

  • Oxfam has worked in Nepal since the 1980s, alongside communities and local partners to tackle inequality and deliver humanitarian and development programmes. Its work is grounded in strengthening civic space and supporting people to challenge the injustices that keep them in poverty, led by a feminist approach rooted in the Global South. Oxfam in Nepal works across three connected areas: climate and water, gender justice, and humanitarian response and disaster risk management.

  • Oxfam is working closely with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), the Social Welfare Council and District Administration Offices to deliver relief materials to affected communities.

Contact information:

Spokespeople in Nepal and New Zealand are available. To arrange interviews please contact: [email protected]

Oxfam launches Nepal flood response in worst-hit Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, as destroyed roads and swept-away bridges block relief efforts

Oxfam has launched an emergency response in Rasuwa and Nuwakot, the districts worst affected by last Wednesday’s flash flood, as roads and bridges swept away by the surge have left entire communities almost impossible to reach.

Oxfam Aotearoa Executive Director, Jason Myers, said “New Zealand and Nepal share a special bond, built through generations of friendship, travel and the many Nepali families who have made Aotearoa their home. So, when disaster strikes Nepal, it resonates deeply with people here in New Zealand.”

On Wednesday 26 August, a landslide and glacial event around 20km north of the Rasuwagadhi checkpoint blocked the Lhende Khola, triggering a major flash flood. At least 1,000 people have been killed and thousands more are missing across Nepal and Tibet. The surge then swept into the Trishuli River via Timure, Syaprubesi and Bhairabkunda, leaving families along the riverbanks of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan, in peril.

“Entire neighbourhoods are under mud and rescue teams are still digging. The water rose nine metres in half an hour. What we are seeing so far is only what we can reach,” said Santosh Pandey, Oxfam Humanitarian Lead in Nepal.

The collapse of roads, bridges, and communications has severely hampered relief efforts. The Government of Nepal’s has asked for 30 temporary bridges of 50 to 70 metres each, alongside food, shelter and water purification supplies. For now, reaching the hardest-hit communities depends almost entirely on-air access.

“The rivers are full of debris and sewage, and there is no piped supply left to fall back on. Getting clean water and safe sanitation to most affected people into these valleys is the priority now,” added Pandey.

Immediate humanitarian priorities remain concentrated around search and rescue, emergency shelter food, clean water, and hygiene items, particularly in the heavily affected and hard-to-reach areas of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading. The Government of Nepal estimates that 8,692 households – nearly 40,000 people – require emergency hygiene support and water purification, in addition to 3,130 dignity kits and nearly 4,000 baby kits for children under five.

As well as responding to the current humanitarian crisis, Oxfam is working with communities in Nepal to improve early warning systems that will save lives in future flooding events. Oxfam Aotearoa’s Advocacy and Policy Lead, Nick Henry, said “Climate change is increasing the risk of similar disasters as glaciers become more unstable and prone to collapse. Experts warn the danger of glacier collapse in the Himalayas could triple by the end of this century at the current rate of climate pollution.”

Oxfam, working with its partners and in close coordination with local authorities, is immediately supplying emergency hygiene kits, incorporating water purification solutions, for 200 households in the hardest-hit Rasuwa district. But Oxfam urgently needs $2 million NZD to scale up its response and reach 10,000 people with temporary shelter, clean water, and sanitation and hygiene kits.

Oxfam Aotearoa has launched an emergency appeal for funding to contribute to this humanitarian response. Myers said, “Oxfam is working with community partners in Nepal to provide families with clean water, hygiene supplies and other essential support following the devastating flash floods. We’re asking New Zealanders to stand with our friends in Nepal and give what they can to help families through this emergency.”

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Notes to editors

  • Oxfam has worked in Nepal since the 1980s, alongside communities and local partners to tackle inequality and deliver humanitarian and development programmes. Oxfam in Nepal works across three connected areas: climate and water, gender justice, and humanitarian response and disaster risk management.

  • Oxfam is working closely with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), the Social Welfare Council and District Administration Offices to deliver relief materials to affected communities.

Contact information:

Spokespeople in Nepal and New Zealand are available. To arrange interviews please contact: [email protected]

Rohingya Crisis Enters Tenth Year as Funding Cuts Put Lifesaving Services at Risk: Oxfam

As the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh enters its tenth year, Oxfam is warning that shrinking humanitarian resources risk undoing years of progress and placing already stretched essential services in Cox’s Bazar under even greater pressure.

Mallika, 36, has lived with her family in Camp 19 in Cox’s Bazar since arriving in Bangladesh in 2017. She said, “When we first came, there was hardly any support, and we suffered a lot. Later, NGOs helped with different lifesaving support and services. But now support is decreasing. I used to buy better food for my children. Now I borrow money for basic needs. It is very difficult to survive.”

Since the mass displacement of 2017, Bangladesh, host communities and international partners have sustained one of the world’s largest humanitarian responses, providing food, safe water and sanitation, shelter, healthcare, protection, education and disaster preparedness to Rohingya refugees. What began as an emergency response, however, has become a prolonged crisis.

Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees are living in Bangladesh, including some 150,000 who have fled renewed violence in Myanmar since early 2024. The recalibrated 2026 Joint Response Plan (JRP) asks for $710.5 million – 26 percent below last year’s – covering little more than the minimum needed to sustain lifesaving assistance.

Anil Pant, Country Director of Oxfam in Bangladesh, said:

“The greatest danger is becoming accustomed to this crisis. Funding pressure now threatens systems built over nearly a decade. We must protect lifesaving services, strengthen resilience and local capacity, support host communities, and renew collective action towards sustainable solutions.”

Funding gaps remain substantial. In 2025, the first year of the 2025–26 Joint Response Plan, donors met just 46 percent of the $934.5 million appeal. The shortfall is now compounding. The cuts have already gutted vital services in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food, health and protection sectors.

Oxfam’s new report, Holding the Line: WASH Systems, Risk and Resilience in the Rohingya Response, shows what is at stake:

Across Cox’s Bazar, emergency WASH interventions have evolved into a vast humanitarian public-health system, including 298 water networks, 320 production boreholes, 768 reservoir tanks, more than 7,000 tapstands, nearly 49,500 latrines, and 167 faecal sludge treatment plants. Yet the publication cautions that scale can hide fragility: ageing assets, dry-season water stress, monsoon exposure, uneven operational control and funding compression are increasing risk.

For women and girls, that strain is a question of safety and dignity as much as sanitation. Asmat Ara, 24, who lives with six family members in a Rohingya camp in Teknaf, said hygiene supplies have dwindled and safe facilities are scarce, making daily life harder.

“If it gets very late, I feel afraid to go outside,” she said. “Sometimes boys gather outside and make comments. I never go alone at night; I take my mother with me.”

She also described the growing pressure on menstrual hygiene support: “The pads should be provided again, and the material could also be improved. We also need more soap.”

Holding the public-health line, the report argues, now depends on steady financing for critical work, such as maintaining and repairing assets, controlling water quality, treating sewage, clearing waste and drains, keeping access safe, and acting fast when disease emerges.

Since 2017, Oxfam has worked alongside Rohingya and host communities, local partners, government institutions, UN agencies and donors across WASH, protection, livelihoods, food security, gender and community engagement. This work, which ranges from surface-water treatment and faecal sludge management to solar lighting, solid-waste systems, food production for dietary diversification, and skills development, shows that humanitarian assistance can protect lives while strengthening resilience and community capacities.

Oxfam is calling on the international community to provide predictable financing, protect essential services, strengthen locally led responses and build host-community resilience. A decade of international solidarity has saved lives and built critical systems. The tenth year must not become one of retreat but of renewed commitment, shared responsibility and credible action towards a sustainable future.

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Notes to Editors

• Check Oxfam’s Rohingya collection of stories and photos on inuru.
• Read Oxfam’s Holding the Line Report.
• Read Oxfam’s Rohingya Crisis: From Humanitarian Response to Sustainable Solutions report.
• For data on the Rohingya Crisis appeal and funding please check UNOCHA Financial Tracking Service.
• Oxfam have been working in Bangladesh since 1970, supporting people affected by disasters and conflict while advancing gender, climate and economic justice. Since 2017, Oxfam has been responding to the Rohingya crisis in Cox’s Bazar, working alongside refugees, host communities, local partners, government, UN agencies and donors. Its response combines lifesaving humanitarian assistance with longer-term resilience, including safe water, faecal sludge management, solar lighting, waste management, food production and livelihood skills. Across Bangladesh, Oxfam works to challenge inequality, strengthen communities and influence policies, seeking sustainable solutions that uphold rights, dignity and justice for the most vulnerable.

Contact information:

For more information, please contact: [email protected]

Holding the Line: WASH Systems, Risk and Resilience in the Rohingya Response

Read full report – Holding the Line: WASH Systems, Risk and Resilience in the Rohingya Response here.

This publication looks beyond the infrastructure in Cox’s Bazar, particularly in Rohingya camps,  that has been built over nearly a decade and asks a critical question: what will it take to keep these systems functioning safely and sustainably?

It combines technical evidence with four human stories, showing how WASH is experienced through everyday realities—safe water, sanitation, dignity, public health and resilience. It also highlights the growing risks created by ageing infrastructure, climate pressures, operational challenges and shrinking funding. We would strongly encourage colleagues working on WASH, humanitarian financing, resilience, climate, public health, advocacy and fundraising to read and use the publication, particularly the human stories and evidence for advocacy and engagement.

Since the large-scale influx in 2017, Bangladesh and the international community have sustained an extraordinary humanitarian response for Rohingya refugees and host communities in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Nearly a decade later, the challenge is shifting from emergency delivery to sustaining critical systems, protecting hard-won gains and building more resilient pathways for the future.

In Cox’s Bazar, WASH is experienced through ordinary routines: the time a tap opens, the condition of a path after rain, the lock on a latrine door, the availability of soap, the arrival of a waste collector, and the speed with which a complaint is resolved. These routines are easy to overlook when the response is described mainly through asset counts. Yet they are where public-health protection, dignity and trust are won or lost.

Contact information:

For more information contact: [email protected]

Rise Together: Funding Climate Resilience in Tuvalu

Read full report – Rise Together – Funding Climate Resilience in Tuvalu

The people of Tuvalu stand on the frontline of a global climate emergency they had no part in causing. Their efforts to overcome the existential threats of the climate crisis come with costs that they cannot and should not carry alone.

For Tuvalu to stay resilient to the escalating climate crisis requires a matching escalation of international support, alongside redoubled efforts to ensure the equitable, effective, and transparent use of resources. Funding resilience in a climate crisis is a complex challenge for Tuvalu and its international partners, but it is essential to get it right. Nothing less than the sovereignty and fundamental rights of the Tuvaluan people depends on it.

Key to the effort will be a broadening and deepening of adaptation efforts so that no one is left behind. This requires amplifying the voice and leadership of women, persons with disabilities, youth, and others who have too often been left out of decisions on funding climate adaptation, even as they carry the heaviest burdens of the crisis.

This report features an analysis of current climate finance flows, which reveals that international investments are heavily skewed toward large-scale physical engineering, often overlooking the critical social infrastructure necessary for holistic, locally led adaptation. Furthermore, the operational reality of these large-scale projects highlights broader systemic constraints. Relatively little of the international climate finance committed to Tuvalu is actually spent in Tuvalu. The majority of funds go to international contractors and consultants and to imported equipment and supplies. While some of this international spending is necessary, especially for large infrastructure projects, Tuvalu’s economy is receiving less benefit from international projects than other similar countries. Tuvalu should develop a local procurement framework to ensure that projects supported by international partners leave behind robust institutional memory and a strengthened domestic workforce capable of sustaining long-term adaptation. This could include joint venture arrangements where appropriate, along with requirements for local employment and skills development.

Additionally, this report promotes several recommendations:

  • Formalise Climate Tracking in the National Regulatory Framework

  • Establish a Sovereign Public Climate Finance Portal

  • Formalise Participatory Fiscal Tracking

  • Implement a ‘Local Joint-Venture’ Procurement Policy

  • Negotiate Budget Support for Permanent Civil Service Roles

  • Guarantee Kaupule Access to Coordinated Climate Project Support

  • Establish a Baseline Target for ‘Social Infrastructure

Contact information:

For more information contact: [email protected]

Big Oil set to double profits as their emissions fuel deadly heatwaves

• Top six fossil fuel corporations expect Q2 profits to nearly double Q1 levels. Annual profits for 2026 are set to exceed the previous 21 months combined.

• Emissions from five fossil fuel corporations were enough to cause about 1 in 4 heatwaves between 2000 and 2023, which would have been virtually impossible without climate change.

• A tax on the richest oil and gas corporations could raise up to $400 billion in its first year, enough to cover annual climate adaptation costs in low- and middle-income countries.

The world’s six biggest fossil fuel corporations are expected to nearly double their combined net income in the second quarter of 2026, jumping from $23 billion in the previous quarter to $45 billion, reveals new Oxfam analysis ahead of their earnings announcements. New data also finds that the emissions of these corporations have significantly magnified the frequency and severity of heatwaves this century.

The projected full-year profits of BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies amount to $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the previous 21 months (Q2 2024 to Q4 2025). Among the biggest winners, Chevron is expected to report that it has quadrupled its profits to $1,200 a second in the last three months, while ExxonMobil’s profits are expected to have tripled to $1,800 a second.

Oil and gas corporations share an outsized responsibility for the climate crisis. New Oxfam analysis of academic data published in Nature finds that the emissions from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023 – heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change. Using S&P Capital Trucost data, Oxfam estimates that Big Oil was responsible for $60 billion in environmental damage last year.

The findings come as record-breaking heatwaves scorch South Asia, Europe and North America, killing tens of thousands of people. Meanwhile, West African countries are struggling with devastating monsoons and floods that have upended thousands of lives and destroyed vital infrastructure across the region.

Yet rather than scaling back fossil fuel production and accelerating the transition to renewable energy, the six largest fossil fuel corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14 percent by 2030 compared to 2024 levels, equivalent to pumping an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.

“Fossil fuel corporations are making a killing, literally and figuratively. As extreme heat, floods and storms devastate communities across the world, the industry is preparing another bonanza of profits. Families are paying the price three times over: through destroyed homes and harvests, through soaring energy prices, and through a cost-of-living crisis worsened by dependence on fossil fuels. Big Oil’s greed is incompatible with a livable planet and unless governments rein it in, they will make a mockery of international climate targets,” said Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead Mariana Paoli.

Oxfam estimates that a tax on the profits of the largest fossil fuel corporations could raise up to $400 billion globally in its first year, enough to cover annual climate adaptation costs in the Global South. An additional excess profits tax on all corporations could generate up to $681 billion globally.

“While Big Oil fuels extreme weather events, rich countries are refusing to increase the public climate finance that poorer countries urgently need to cope with the climate crisis,” said Paoli. “Until governments make the richest polluters pay, fossil fuel corporations will keep driving us deeper into climate chaos. Taxing the richest polluters could help close the gap in funding for climate adaptation and speed the transition towards renewable energy. Fossil fuel corporations must feel the heat, not us.”

Political momentum for taxing the richest polluters is growing. Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Austria have called for a new windfall tax on energy profits. In Australia, where Oxfam research found that one in three coal, oil and gas corporations are paying no corporate income tax, many members of Parliament are speaking out in support of a 25 percent export tax on gas, with strong public support.

Research in 60 countries found that 28 percent of them have implemented a temporary windfall tax on excess profits from fossil fuel companies in recent years, with a further 13 percent supportive. Just 12 percent are explicitly against the measure.

Oxfam Aotearoa’s Advocacy and Policy Lead, Nick Henry, said, “Fossil fuel companies have a global responsibility for climate change. The New Zealand Government should be holding these rich polluters to account and making them pay the cost of their climate damage.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Oxfam’s research is based on S&P Capital IQ’s consensus estimates compiled from financial analysts’ forecasts. The six largest fossil fuel corporations are due to publish their second-quarter earnings over the coming week. The projected surge in profits reflects the sharp rise in oil prices following the unlawful US and Israel war against Iran.

Download Oxfam’s methodology note.

Read Oxfam’s comprehensive investigation “Big Oil profits expected to double as the world burns”. Get the latest insights, data and investigations on global inequality through the Equals podcast and newsletter.

Analysis of peer reviewed data finds that, of the 213 heatwaves recorded between 2000 and 2023, 55 would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change. The historical emissions of Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies were, on their own, enough to cross the threshold that made nearly all those heatwaves over 10,000 times more likely (50 heatwaves for TotalEnergies, 51 for the four others). This means that the emissions of any of those five corporations were enough, on their own, to cause around 1 in 4 of the heatwaves.

Countries in Europe reported over 10,000 excess deaths during the extreme heatwaves in June. Heatwaves are also killing tens of thousands of people in India. Dozens of people drowned, hundreds had to be rescued and thousands were displaced when floods struck the coasts of west Africa last month.

Oxfam estimates that an additional tax on the profits of 585 of the world’s major oil, gas and coal corporations would raise $400 billion. An additional 50 percent tax on the excess profits of all corporations other than fossil fuel energy corporations with a revenue above $100 million would raise $681 billion.

According to the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2025, the estimated adaptation finance needs of low- and middle-income countries range from $310 billion to $365 billion per year by 2035.

Read the details of Oxfam’s model for a ”rich polluter profit tax”.

Read the letter from EU Economy and Finance ministers calling for a windfall profit tax on energy corporations.

Download Oxfam Australia’s Freeloaders report.

See the country mapping of government support for fossil fuel taxes.

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: [email protected]