1. The document discusses tackling climate challenges in Nepal and understanding the present status. It notes that while Nepal has been involved in international climate negotiations since the 1990s, understanding of climate science and impacts in Nepal remains limited due to insufficient data and research. 2. It states that institutional capacity, especially of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment and other relevant agencies, needs strengthening to better address climate change. Coordination between agencies and levels of government also needs improvement. 3. Funding for climate projects in Nepal has increased, but concerns are raised about efficiency and the need for stronger coordination and monitoring of projects. Long-term data and research is still lacking to fully understand climate impacts and inform adaptation.

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Tackling climate challenges in Nepal –
understanding the present status
This confusion exists at global level too and the term ‘midaptation’ is
used by few experts to refer the overlap between these two
approaches
Issue Name : Vol: 08 No. -15 January. 30- 2015 (Magh 16, 2071)
Tek Jung Mahat (/News/Writer/Tek-Jung-Mahat)
2
As we welcome 2015 - the most important year in the history of
climate change which can MAKE or BREAK climate actions with implications
to several decades and many generations to come, climate change itself is
not a new issue in Nepal anymore. Nepal is signatory to the UNFCCC since
the convention took place in 1992 (with ratification done in 1994), is
taking part in negotiations as they started and has been proactive
afterwards COP 13 in Bali (2007). However Nepal’s international visibility
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2. increased mainly with and after COP 15 in Copenhagen (2009) where Prime
Minister-led delegation got involved in several intensive rounds of
discussions (bilateral and multilateral) and then Honorable PM Madhav
Kumar Nepal announced Mountain Alliance Initiative (MAI), following to
success of Cabinet Meeting at Kala Patthar and Summiteers Summit to Save
the Himalayas (S3H) in Copenhagen. This has further enhanced with the
organization of the International Conference of Mountain Countries on
Climate Change in April 2012 with ministerial level participation from 10
countries (Kathmandu Call for Action) and 8th community-based
adaptation to climate change conference (CBA8) in Kathmandu in April
2014 apart from periodic UNFCCC meetings, including COPs and
Intersessionals, and national to international climate relevant conference
Nepal has been contributing.
Following this, climate change awareness, incoming funding,
process documentation, government and non-government agency
involvement and variety of efforts to tackle climate change issues have
significantly increased in Nepal with both – positive and negative
consequences. Highlights include - NAPA documented is prepared, LAPA
Framework is drawn, National Climate Change Policy is formulated, Prime
Minister-led Climate Change Council (CCC) and MOSTE-led Multistakeholder
Climate Change Initiative Coordination Committee (MCCICC) and Climate
Change Program Coordination Committee (CCPCC) are functioning, NAPA
follow-up projects are being implemented including Strategic Program for
Climate Resilience (SPCR), Nepal Climate Change Support Programme
(NCCSP) and Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) among others. In addition
to this, multi-million-multi-year initiatives such as Multi Stakeholder
Forestry Programme (MSFP), Hariyo Ban Program, Kailash Sacred
Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI), Koshi Basin
Programme (KBP), Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Programme
(CDRMP), Community Based Flood and Glacial Lake Outburst Risk Reduction
Project (CFGORRP) etc are adding fuel to government works. On the top,
Carbon Finance has gained a momentum attracting Community
Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) through biogas initiatives, there has
been significant improvement in rural electrification through increased use
of solar panels, number of and energy produced from mini- and micro-
hydro has increased, and internationally Nepal just concluded its 2-years
tenure as the LDC Chair leading the UNFCCC negotiation block of 48
countries from 2012-2014. However, this is not the end of the story!
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3. 1. All three aspects of climate change research (used by IPCC)
are not fully understood – the physical science basis; Impacts, Adaptation
and Vulnerability; and Mitigation of Climate Change: The reason being we
do not have adequate hydro-meteorological as well as and biological
monitoring stations and long term data in these areas are rather limited.
Sectorial impacts of climate change in various areas is not well
documented and properly researched. Lack of scientific data coupled with
gap in socio-economic understanding and population dynamics and their
interaction with natural resources makes our vulnerability assessments
less reliable. We believe there are number of ways people (our local
communities) have been adapting to various environmental changes,
including climate change for ages, however such traditional as well as
modern adaptation skills and approaches are not much documented and to
develop new adaptation means in the changed context, we do not have
clear understanding about what exactly has changed? How much has
changed? What such changes mean to us? And what and how can reverse
or minimize such changes and their effects? Of multiple reasons behind
lack of understanding in these areas, Nepal lacks research oriented
initiatives and/or is suffering from less efficient research efforts with
extremely limited involvement of academia that should be playing crucial
role in unveiling the real science behind this process.
2. Institutional capacity building: Although the Ministry of
Science Technology and Environment (MOSTE) has been functioning
efficiently maximizing use of limited human, financial and technical
resources it has, it is increasingly felt that there needs a radical
improvement in the capacity of the ministry as well as other scientific and
administrative bodies within the ministry including Department of
Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), Alternative Energy Promotion Centre
(AEPC), National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Department of
Environment (DoE) among others. Institutional capacity building has to
cover also other sectorial line ministries including but not limited to
Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Ministry of Forest and
Soil Conservation, Ministry of Agricultural Development, Ministry of Energy,
Ministry of Irrigation, Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport,
Ministry of Home Affairs etc and affiliated units such as Department of
Water Supply and Sewerage, Water and Energy Commission Secretariat,
Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention, Department of Electricity
Development, Nepal Water Supply Corporation, Department of Transport
Management, Disaster Management Section among others. Such efforts
should improve state presence from national to local level, ensuring
Kathmandu and the districts are on the same page to take climate actions.
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in this process.
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4. 3. Funding Vs efficiency and role of (inter-agency and within
the agency) coordination and monitoring: In recent years, UNFCCC
negotiations, esp. COPs are becoming battlefield of ideological war
between the developed/industrialized and developing (LDCs included)
nations, where developing countries demand additional climate support
fund from developed countries and in return agree to reduce their
potential carbon emissions and help the developed countries to do so
through different mechanism including carbon trade. Adaption is much
thriving area within UN process for climate support. Recent BBC feature
story reports more than 500 such projects are listed in the National
Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), which least developed countries,
including Nepal had been preparing since 2001 under the UN climate
convention. LDCs require more than $2bn to complete the 500 or more
climate adaptation projects they have identified, but not even $900m has
been made available to the fund so far. Like other LDCs, NAPA 2010
estimated that Nepal needs $350m to properly address the adaptation
issues. However a recent climate finance study by Oxfam shows that total
committed fund for climate change adaptation projects in Nepal for the
period of 2009-2012 was $550m as per the Rio Marking by donors. This
figure may increase after taking into account financial support received by
number of other agencies working in Nepal. Considering this, Nepal has to
focus in both the areas – attracting additional funding as well as making
sure available funding is effectively utilized benefitting the real
stakeholders on the ground. This should also be seen in the context of
need for an improved inter-agency (ministry-ministry, government-
nongovernment-UN-donor and private sector) as well as intra-agency
(within the ministry and departments) coordination mechanism and most
importantly in establishing an effective monitoring mechanism.
4. Governance (both government and non-government), and
creation of ‘level playing field’ for all national and international players in
Nepal: In order to make the climate actions in Nepal more effective, time
has come that revisit our present approach and governance structure.
Through careful analysis of several elements (as suggested by ESGP[iii])
such as Architecture, Agency, Adaptiveness, Accountability, and Allocation
& Access, as well as cross cutting themes such as Power, Knowledge,
Norms, and Scale, we should be able to make a better formulation. It is
also important to create enabling environment for all climate actors in
Nepal (level playing field) to end the climate action deadlock, to
discourage ‘donor and large NGOs’ oligopoly in climate sector and enhance
our actions.

5. 5. Mitigation Vs Adaptation: By nature Mitigation responds to
larger systems and adaptation to people/community. Unfortunately we
have not yet fully understood how mitigation is different from adaptation,
and what the extent of overlap is. This confusion exists at global level too
and the term ‘midaptation’ is used by few experts to refer the overlap
between these two approaches. In Nepal, further clarity is needed on
Nepal’s scope and limitation on both the areas - mitigation and
adaptation. All our interventions should be classified considering this. A
simplified understanding is, mitigation affects the larger system (such as
forest, transport, energy etc) and adaptation affects people and very
locally. Although Nepal’s immediate priority is adaptation, mitigation on
the other hand, can no longer be ignored given the fact new scientific
evidences have shown several localized process such as black carbon that
effect the local climate more than global phenomenon. This also means
our adaptation actions and finances need to be further localized and
pushed outside Kathmandu as much as possible and as effectively as
possible.
6. Climate change problem to culture and trade-mill:
Interestingly, climate changed has revealed its multiple forms in Nepal.
First it emerged as a ‘serious socio-economic and environmental problem’,
then it became a ‘culture’ (as we think, talk and see climate change in
everything), and eventually now it is becoming a trade-mill as our
governance is weak, monitoring mechanism are not in place, and climate
change has more easy money than other sectors. This is the worst form of
climate change one country like ours face as trade-mill culture will
increase inefficiency, science will suffer from gross exaggeration, relevant
agencies will be cannibalized by powerful but unproductive agencies and
its expected users (the local communities) will never benefit from it. We
need to break this chain.
7. Climate Change negotiations and Nepal’s niche within the
regional and international processes, including discussions on LDC Vs
Mountain Agenda vis-à-vis Nepal’s economic and geographic
realities:Nepal’s presence in international negotiations have often suffered
from clear identity crisis. We are LDC and at the same time we are
mountainous country (MC) too. One has to do with socio-economic
conditions and other has to do with the geography. This LDC-MC
divergence is seen effecting Nepal’s negotiation position. Esp. when Nepal
was chair of LDC groups. It is important that Nepal defines its fixed home
before intermittently switching in between. Such switching needs to have
conceptual clarity and Nepal, as a state, should not be used y powerful
agencies to fulfill their vested interest.
The article is the property of New Spotlight News Magazine.

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