Putting the cost of recovery at $5 billion, a senior Nepali official said his country had requested urgent financial help from the United Nations' special fund for climate-disaster recovery. Maheshwar Dhakal, the climate change chief in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Environment, explicitly asserted that human-caused climate had been a factor in last week's horrific glacial collapse and flooding. He framed the event as an inequity in which decades of greenhouse-gas emissions from richer nations are harming vulnerable countries like his that can't cope. "Those who have contributed the least are suffering the most," said Mr. Dhakal, who shared a letter his government sent to the fund's board.

It was a version of this argument used for years at international climate conferences that persuaded negotiators to agree to the special U.N. climate fund in 2023. But the program has been held back by wealthy nations, including the United States, which have been reluctant to contribute. As a result, the fund is ill-equipped for a disaster of this scale, leaving stricken nations with few good options.

The fund has so far received $820 million in pledges. The United States, historically the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged $17.5 million under President Biden but then exited the fund under President Trump. Richard Sherman, a South African who is one of the fund's board members, estimated that the U.N. loss-and-damage fund could conceivably allocate $20 million to Nepal, given the demands from other nations. "It's nothing," said Mr. Sherman, who said he had proposed that the board meet "as soon as possible" to help Nepal. Mr. Sherman also said that a country like Nepal could turn to the World Bank for loans.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. fund did not immediately offer a comment. The White House did not address questions about the climate disaster fund and about its approach to helping vulnerable countries. It referred questions to the State Department, which did not immediately respond.

The Trump administration has pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, the main treaty for addressing climate change. This year it also withdrew from the Green Climate Fund, a separate program established in 2010 that is aimed at preventing climate damages and helping countries adapt to more extreme conditions.