A flash flood triggered by an avalanche of ice and rock near Nepal’s border with Tibet has caused hundreds of deaths and massive destruction. Sopa/Alamy
The cause of the huge floods and debris flow on the border between Nepal and Tibet, which has caused hundreds of deaths, appears to have been an ice avalanche – the result of a huge piece of a glacier collapsing and cascading down the mountain more than 1,000 metres to the valley floor. The Conversation asked Jonathan Bamber, a professor of glaciology at the University of Bristol, about the risks of glaciers melting faster than ever.
Is this region particularly at risk from glacier melt?
The greater Himalayan region, called High Mountains Asia (HMA), is often referred to as the third pole because it contains more glacier ice than anywhere outside the polar regions. Many of those glaciers lie along the northern border of Nepal and China, forming an east-west arc of the Himalayas. Tibet is an autonomous region of China.
Eight of the 14 peaks above 8,000m lie in Nepal. Its northern half is extremely mountainous and precipitous, making it susceptible to landslides, rockfalls and glacier-related hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods and ice cliff collapses. When glaciers flow over steep bedrock slopes, the ice fractures into what are called seracs: ice cliffs that are inherently unstable and break off from time to time.
Are glaciers melting more quickly now?
It should come as no surprise that in a warming world, ice melts faster. Since the start of the industrial revolution, typically taken to be 1850, the world has warmed by 1.4°C.
However, that warming is a global average and there are large regional variations. The Arctic has warmed by more than double that amount, and the Himalayan region has also warmed by more than the global average . The rate of warming has accelerated significantly over about the last four decades. As a consequence, glaciers around the world have been melting faster.
The most comprehensive assessment of glacier melting (called glacier mass balance) combines satellite observations with ground-based data to reconstruct melt rates from 1976-2024. They find that the rate is greater for the most recent decade compared with the long-term mean for every region except Iceland. For the HMA, the increase is about 25%. For the European Alps, it is more than double.
What are the consequences?
When glaciers melt, the primary consequence is the release of meltwater that flows, seasonally, into meltstreams which then feed into larger river systems. However, the glaciers lie on permafrost: ground that is permanently frozen to some depth. As this permafrost warms and thaws, the rock, ice and mud become unstable, resulting in rockfalls and destabilisation of ice in steep terrain.
In the case of the Nepal-Tibet disaster, imagine a block of ice some 600m wide and about 50m thick collapsing. That represents around half a million tons of ice crashing into the valley.
Serac collapses are more common during warmer periods, when surface melting weakens the ice. That is why mountaineers try to pass serac barriers at night or in the early morning, before the sun has warmed them.
A further consequence of glacier melt is the formation of lakes dammed by ice or moraines (debris left behind by glacier melt) at the glacier front. These lakes form glacial lake outburst floods that occur when the dam fails. Many trails in Nepal and India carry warning signs for these.
Floods in Nepal have caused hundreds of deaths.
What else should nations be doing?
Increased glacier melting is one of many consequences of living in a warming world. The unprecedented wildfires across Spain and France, the heatwaves across Europe, more intense and common droughts are all consequences of a climate system that is out of equilibrium. The UK declared a climate emergency in 2019, as has the EU and a number of other states.
Progress has been made in reducing our dependency on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, but emissions are still increasing. One definition of an emergency is an existential threat that requires immediate action. Not enough has been done to tackle this yet, despite the encouraging words from many governments and states.
We have the know-how and technology to address the climate crisis. What is lacking is the political will and vision. If this is not forthcoming, melting glaciers are just one aspect of this human-made climate crisis, and the consequences will be devastating.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
A person using an electric fan to cool down on the underground in London. Education, health services and transport all suffered in the heat. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Meteorologists say mean average temperature of 16.5C was made 130 times more likely by climate crisis
This year’s summer was the UK’s hottest on record, according to provisional data, and the Met Office said the season’s mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by the climate crisis.
Record-breaking and back-to-back heatwaves have scorched much of Europe. In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C (100.1F) at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August, and June had already been confirmed as the country’s hottest since records began in 1884. Scientists have said these heatwaves are only possible because of the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels.
The Met Office said an average mean UK temperature of 16.5C made this summer provisionally the warmest on record as well as the warmest season in a series going back to 1884. England, Wales and Northern Ireland broke their respective mean temperature records for summer while Scotland recorded its joint sixth hottest summer.
This is the second year in a row that temperature records have been broken, with 2025 and 2026 both the warmest UK summers since records began.
The infamous summer of 1976 is now the seventh warmest on record in terms of mean temperature.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
dizzy: I try to avoid such long videos but found this fascinating and am likely to return to it many times. You will certainly be far better informed after watching this video. It is matter-of-fact reasoned argument from an intelligent, informed man. I warn you that it discusses a very depressing topic – climate change and the absolute absence of any action to address it – so maybe not for those who would prefer blissful ignorance.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
The fire-gutted remains of homes on Quarry Park Road on 17 August in Stourbridge, England after a wildfire that broke out across the West Midlands. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty
Government resilience campaign aims to ensure people can cope in a national disaster, in order to free resources for most vulnerable
UK citizens will be told to stock up on tinned food and take steps to ensure they are prepared for national emergencies as part of a new government campaign to improve the nation’s resilience.
The new campaign from the Cabinet Office will set out ways people can prepare for and potential attacks from hostile states, including stocking up on bottled water, sources told the Guardian.
The aim will be to ensure most households have basic supplies and knowledge about how to cope in a crisis, in order to free up immediate government resources for the most vulnerable.
Translation by dizzy: The government wants you to stock up for when the shelves are empty caused by climate change – the long dry summer has decimated agricultural produce.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice speaking at a press conference in August 2026. Credit: GB News / YouTube
“Climate change has always happened. It always will.”
That was the remark made by Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice on Monday about this summer’s record heatwaves, which have caused wildfires and droughts across the country.
The Boston and Skegness MP added: “When it’s a bit warm, let’s enjoy it. And if it means that English wine and sparkling wine gets better and better, fantastic. […] Let’s celebrate some of these things rather than just be sort of doom and gloom about it.”
This wasn’t the first time a Reform politician has dismissed climate change as a threat or spread false or misleading arguments about it.
DeSmog has been covering Reform’s climate denial for seven years – since its founding as the Brexit Party in 2019 – along with its opposition to net zero targets and support for fossil fuels.
The party has received £24 million from fossil fuel interests, representing two-thirds of its total income to date. Those donations, and the party’s anti-climate commitments, stand in stark contrast to the lived reality of Reform constituents, who are also among those most at risk from extreme heat and flooding.
As the truth about and consequences of climate change become increasingly clear, here are some of the wildest climate claims made by Reform and its politicians.
‘The climate has always changed’
This week was only the latest example of Tice dismissing the extent of human-caused climate change by referring to fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature over several millennia.
In an interview with Bloomberg in May, Tice said: “Look, the climate’s always changed for millions of years. And it goes through cycles.”
In a June 2024 interview on BBC 5 Live, Reform leader Nigel Farage made a similar claim. “We’ve had climate change for millions of years,” he said. When told, “Not at this rapidity”, he replied: “How do we know? Our scientific knowledge of this is very small.”
And, in February 2025, Farage told the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London: “Now, there are times in our past when CO2 in the atmosphere has been much, much higher than it is today, and that’s before people drove 4×4 Chelsea tractors.”
In fact, climate scientists have concluded that global warming since the industrial revolution is “unparalleled”, and stated that the contribution of humans is “unequivocal”. Scientists at NASA found that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record.
When Bloomberg showed Tice some graphs demonstrating this, the MP threatened to walk out of the interview.
‘CO2 is plant food’ and ‘not a pollutant’
Reform figures have also dismissed the role of CO2 emissions in human-caused climate change.
In November 2023, Tice posted a video on Twitter attacking climate policy, with the caption: “CO2 isn’t a poison. It’s plant food! We need to challenge the climate change nonsense!”
While plants absorb CO2, this doesn’t alter the fact that unprecedented emissions are trapping heat in the atmosphere.
At the 2025 ARC conference, Farage said: “The one thing I hear that drives me absolutely potty is that carbon dioxide is a pollutant! That’s what they tell us! That clearly is absolutely nuts.”
As the website Skeptical Science notes, whether CO2 is a pollutant depends on the context: “Although it has some very important and beneficial effects, CO2 meets the legal and encyclopaedic definitions of a ‘pollutant’, and human CO2 emissions pose a threat to public health and welfare.”
In February 2025, in an interview on Sky News, Tice said: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change [the] climate”.
In a 2021 appearance on GB News, Farage attacked what he called “this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science”.
In fact, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, has stated that it is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”.
It has also stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
In the Sky News interview, Tice – a property developer with no scientific background – called the IPCC’s evidence “absolute garbage”.
In response, Sky quoted Dr George Adamson from King’s College London, who said the idea that Tice had “discovered something that climate scientists don’t know about is of course preposterous”.
Dr Philipp Breul from Imperial College London added: “We are causing the climate to change significantly faster than it has, to the best of our knowledge, in the last million years”.
Sunspots and volcanoes
Senior Reform figures have also repeatedly spread the false claim that climate change is caused by natural phenomena including volcanoes.
During the 2024 general election campaign, Tice appeared on BBC Breakfast and blamed climate change on “the power of the sun or volcanoes”.
In his February 2025 Sky News interview, Tice said: “The arrogant naivete of people who think you can stop the power of the sun, stop the power of volcanoes.”
At the 2025 ARC conference, Farage said: “I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not, but there are so many other massive factors.”
He went on to claim that Patrick Moore, a TV astronomer, had told him 20 years ago that “when it comes to carbon dioxide levels, and when it comes to warming and cooling, let me assure you that sunspot activity and underwater volcanic activity will always have a bigger impact on the environment than man himself ever can”. Farage added: “I’ve very much stuck to that view.”
These claims about sunspots and volcanoes have long been debunked by climate experts. For example, the sun’s energy has been decreasing while Earth’s temperature has increased. Volcanoes emit around 1 percent as much CO2 as produced by humans every year.
Farage has long opposed climate action. When he was leader of the UK Independence Party prior to the 2016 Brexit referendum, the party’s manifestos pledged to rip up green measures, repeal the UK’s Climate Change Act, withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and support fossil fuel extraction.
‘Climate lockdowns’
Reform politicians have also spread baseless claims about climate and environmental policy being part of a plot to take away people’s rights.
For example, posting on Twitter in 2023, Farage warned that London’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) would lead to “climate lockdowns”.
He said: “Mark my words this isn’t going to end with 20mph zones and low-traffic neighbourhoods. No – no. This is the beginning of climate lockdowns. We will have, in years to come, days where we’re told we can’t drive, we can’t do this, you can’t do that, while Sadiq Khan is leading the way. Remember you heard it here first. Climate lockdowns.”
This is a conspiracy theory accusing left-wing politicians of making plans to impose Covid-style restrictions under the guise of tackling climate change. It has been spread by fringe groups that see anti-pollution measures as part of a “Big Brother” dictatorship.
Meanwhile, three years after being implemented, London’s ULEZ scheme has resulted in a dramatic fall in deadly air pollution and better lung capacity among children. No climate lockdowns have come to pass.
‘Net zero will destroy the economy’
This week, Tice also repeated Reform’s position that trying to cut emissions to net zero is a terrible mistake. He said: “Of course, the climate changes, but where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it? Where is the evidence? There is no evidence.”
In his June 2024 interview with the BBC, Farage called net zero “an act of mindless self-harm” that would cause the UK to “deindustrialise” and “put massive bills on the poor, when it doesn’t benefit global CO2 emissions at all”.
Net zero targets are based on the advice of climate scientists. The IPCC has said global emissions must be cut to net zero by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Failure to do so would have vast economic consequences.
The independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) has estimated that the cost of achieving net zero will be less than one percent of the UK’s annual economic output. Failing to get climate change under control would cost more than net zero, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
This has been witnessed this summer, with academic estimates suggesting that the heatwaves have cost the economy £4.4 billion so far. This year’s harvest has been the worst on record, leading to consternation from British farmers – including one of Reform’s own agriculture advisors.
The CCC has also said that the entire cost of net zero would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock, such as we have seen during the Ukraine and Iran wars.
By contrast, it’s estimated that Reform’s policy of scrapping clean energy schemes and expanding fossil fuel exploration would wipe £92 billion off GDP and risk over 60,000 jobs.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.Nigel Farage is scathing at the £250,000 cost to the taxpayer of his unnecessary and ridiculous Clacton-on-Sea election campaign that he caused to avoid scrutiny and acccountability for the £5MILLION ‘gift’ that he didn’t declare.Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
