Climate Change: What it means to Nepal?
As defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), climate change refers to a statistically significant variation in
either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an
extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to
natural internal processes or external forcing, or to persistent anthropogenic
changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Magnitude and
scale of climate change can be experienced in a particular region or at a
global scale that affects the whole earth. In recent practices, especially in
the context of international environmental deals, climate change usually refers
to changes in modern climate, more preciously ‘anthropogenic climate change’,
more generally known as global warming. IPCC concludes that most of the
observed temperature increases since the middle of the 20th century was caused
by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases(GHG) resulting from human
activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation. It also concludes that
variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanism produced
most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling
effect afterward. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40
scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies
of science of the major industrialized countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming,
16 December 2011).
According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development (ICIMOD, 2009), the temperature increase is widespread over the
globe, with higher than average trends in many of the world’s highlands. On
average the global temperature rose by 0.74°C over the last hundred years
(1906-2005), with more than half of this rise, 0.44°C, in the last 25 years.
Eleven of the twelve years between 1995 and 2006 rank among the twelve warmest
years since 1850 when records of global surface temperature began. The number
of extreme precipitation events like heavy rainfall and severe storms, appears
to have increased, and there is some indication that there has also been an
overall increase in precipitation, although the confidence in these estimates
is lower than for temperature. As quoted by ICIMOD, according to IPCC’s Fourth
Assessment (IPCC 2007): “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged
temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed
increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations,” (about 436 parts per
million CO2-equivalent in 2008).
According to ICIMOD, the rates of warming in the Hindu
Kush-Himalayan region (HKH), which include Bhutan, Nepal and parts of
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar and Pakistan, are significantly
higher than the global average. Within the region, the rates in the western
Himalayas, eastern Himalayas, and the plains of the Ganges basin over the last
25 years are lower (0.01-0.03°C per yr), and those for the central Himalayas (Nepal)
and the Tibetan Plateau (based on limited station data), appear to be
considerably higher (0.04 to 0.09°C per yr and 0.03-0.07°C per yr,
respectively). The measurements in Nepal and Tibet also indicate that warming
is occurring at much higher rates in the high altitude regions than in the low
altitude areas; the vast low elevation areas of India do not show any
significant signs of warming. If the situation continues, all areas of South
Asia are projected to warm by at least 1°C by the end of the century; in the
Punjab area, a large part of Afghanistan, Badakshan, the western Nepal
Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh, and the northern Tibetan Plateau, warming could be
as high as 3.5-4°C. The rate of warming is likely to increase with increasing
altitude, at least in Bhutan, Nepal, and Himachal Pradesh.
Climate change impacts
Climate is a dynamic phenomenon which has impacted many areas
including forests to water supply to livelihoods, health, agriculture etc. and
is always changing through a natural cycle, though the change is more because
of human activities. Climate change is likely to have both positive and
negative impacts on people’s lives, although the negative effects may prevail
overall. Some observed changes include shrinking of glaciers, thawing of
permafrost, later freezing and earlier break-up of ice on rivers and lakes,
lengthening of growing seasons, shifts in plant and animal ranges, flash floods
and earlier flowering of trees etc.(http://edugreen.teri.res.in/explore/climate/causes.htm).
Below are few representative effects.
As referred in several mainstream literatures, at high altitudes
and latitudes, crop yield should increase because of reduction in frost and
cold damage but on the other hand irrigated lowland agriculture, found in all
of the large basins receiving their runoff from the Hindu Kush Himalayan
systems, is likely to suffer from the lack of water in the dry season.
According to IPCC report 2007, by 2050 there will be 30% decrease in
agricultural production in the South Asian region. In 2007, 100,000 hectares of
rice paddy were lost to flooding in Nepal.
The another area would be health sector, which can be summarized
as, direct impact in the form of drought, heat waves and flash floods, indirect
effects due to climate induced economic decline, conflict, crop failure and
associated malnutrition and hunger etc and indirect effects may be aggravated
intensity of infectious diseases caused by changing environmental conditions.
Another important impact of climate change in the Himalayan
country like Nepal is, Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). The acronym GLOF is
used for glacier floods caused by the drainage of naturally dammed lakes in the
glacier, on or at the margin of glaciers. GLOFs are not a new phenomenon but with
the worldwide receding of glaciers and rising temperature the probability of
their occurrences has risen in many mountain ranges. Nepal has experienced
several GLOFs originating from numerous glacial lakes, some of which are even
based outside its territory. Although other natural disasters such as rainfall
floods, earthquakes, landslides or wildfires have claimed the lives of
thousands of Nepalese in recent decades, glacial lake outbursts are feared for
the potential devastation from a single large event (Kattelmann 2003, ‘Glacial
lake outburst floods in the Nepal Himalaya: A manageable hazard?’ in: Natural
Hazards). In Nepal, 20 glacial lakes are currently at risk of bursting their
banks, potentially leading to floods that would endanger lives, land and
livelihoods. (Fighting floods in Asia’s water tower, January 2009, DFID)
Climate Change: Is adaptation an answer?
The extent of climate change effects, and whether these effects
prove harmful or beneficial, will vary by region, over time, and with the ability
of different societal and environmental systems to adapt to or cope with the
change. For instance, some of the case studies done by Winrock International,
show that the Ring Road Trolley Bus Project can save 547,000 tons of CO2 or
149,000 tons of carbon over the life time of the project. Similarly, Winrock
has also shown that an 8 m3 biogas plant can save about 6 to 7 tons of CO2 per
year. Although, there are over 100,000 biogas plants in Nepal, this number is
less than 10 percent of the total potential number of biogas plants. The carbon
saved by expansion of trolley bus or biogas plants can be traded in the global
carbon market to finance part of the cost of the trolley bus project or replace
the subsidy on biogas. However, in order to take advantage of CDM, Nepal needs
to be prepared with studies, proposals and appropriate institutional
mechanisms. (Climate Change: A Nepalese Perspective (Dec 2003), Clean Energy
Nepal factsheet).
On a positive note, the process of adapting may create coping
strategies not just to climate change but also to sustainable development.
Adaptation reinforces and builds resilience, which is the key to both long and
short-term survival. So there is a growing need of building resilience towards
the impacts of climate change and according to the ICIMOD (e-discussion
synthesis report), ecosystem management approaches are being promoted as a
means of increasing ecological resilience, social resilience is about building
the ability of communities or groups of people to adapt in the face of external
social, political, and environmental stresses and disturbances. It is generally
believed that an adaptive ecosystem management approach, combining adaptive
management of both social and ecological systems, can improve the resilience of
people and the environment and reduce vulnerability.
There is a growing concern of international community on the
restless impacts of climate change on developing countries though they share
very limited contribution in GHGs emissions. And such countries are trying to
make best use of available international processes to mitigate climate change
and develop compensation mechanisms to tackle the issues they are facing due to
excessive use of fossil fuels of developed countries.
For example, there are number of international process and
mechanisms to discuss on possible solutions to negative impacts of climate
change. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) led
Conference of Parties (COPs) is on the top of the list, which aims to bring
together all parties (member states) to negotiate on how climate change can be
mitigated? What measures can be taken to tackle climate change? What adaptation
measures are possible? What kind of financing mechanisms can help improve
developing nation’s battle against climate change impact? What kind of
institutional, technical and technological transfer can speed up this process?
What kind of voluntary and legally binding measures need to be adopted to make
sure present climate don’t go further worse? etc. The climate debate is
interestingly getting more and more complicated under the UNFCCC framework
mainly after adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) at COP3 in 1997. One of most
important move in climate change arena, the KP outlined the greenhouse gas emissions
reduction obligation for Annex I countries, along with what came to be known as
Kyoto mechanisms such as emissions trading, clean development mechanism and
joint implementation. COP 13 (2007 in Bali), COP 15 (2009 in Copenhagen), COP
16 (2010 in Cancun) and COP17 (2011 in Durban) are some important UNFCCC COPS
that have come up with some concrete measures to tackle this problem, provided
minimum ground to continue mutual respects among and between developing and
developed economies, facilitate dialogues, enhance technical cooperation,
increase funding and proactively promote research and development (R&D)
activities while maintaining sustainable livelihood of people and reversing
environmental damages. However it is important to note, none of them have
provided a strong measure that can really help prevent the dangerous impact of
climate change, i.e. the atmospheric concentration of GHG must stabilize at 350
ppm to limit the global temperature increases at 1.50C above the
pre-industrial level by 2015. Geographically countries like Nepal are sure to
witness extremely high threats from this as the mountain ecosystems are more
vulnerable to climate change where there is a large knowledge gap in
understanding the impacts of climate change, particularly on snow and glaciers
of Himalayan region. Situation may go even worse as the people living in such
places are economically weak, socially marginalised, least educated and
surrounded with too many other problems. This eventually affects community
resilience to climate change resulting to inevitable loss of life and property
due to poor adaptive measures societies can afford. More in-depth research on
mountain ecosystems and processes (cryosphere, forestry, hydrology,
agriculture, rangeland, population and resource distribution etc.), including
snow and glacier melt processes should be promoted to fill the critical
knowledge gaps. Otherwise mountainous countries and institutions will never be
able to find ‘fair’ place at international negotiations like UNFCCC COPs, and
neither the mountain communities can have any solid basis to claim for desired
compensation. Segregating knowledge from the sea of information is very
challenging, however more challenging is to distil wise from thus segregated
knowledge and build strong positions of mountainous countries for UNFCCC
processes building on those knowledge and wise. This is why it becomes
unavoidable option for mountainous countries to come together, promote
south-south cooperation and eventually develop a strong alliance at
international meetings and negotiations to secure the interest of mountain
communities and developing economies.
Why Mountains?
According to ICIMOD, mountains cover
around 24% of the Earth’s land surface and host about 13% of the world
population. Mountains are the providers of essential ecosystem services and
play the role of water towers to billions of people living in downstream
slopes, valleys and plains – directly and indirectly. In Asia, the Hindu
Kush-Himalayan (HKH) mountain system, also referred to as the third pole,
contains the largest volume of snow and ice outside the polar region. The Hindu
Kush-Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Pamir, and Atlas mountain systems all play a
critical role. As a source of water flows and river systems, the world’s
mountain watersheds support livelihoods and food security for almost half of
the global population. Since the mountains are experiencing much higher rate of
warming, they will be affected very badly and within relatively very short
period of time. For the mountainous countries like Nepal, this finding may act
as warning signal as things are changing so fast over relatively slow pace of
development of preventive and adaptive measures.
Regional and International Process:
There are several regional and global initiatives launched to take
forward climate change debate in the context of mountain countries and
ecosystems. Few important initiatives include;
Government of Nepal’s (GoN) Mountain Initiative (2009 onwards): Realising the fact that despite significant role of mountain
ecosystems, the mountain agenda is not addressed adequately by the UNFCCC
deliberations to reflect the needs of mountain livelihoods and environments the
Prime Minister of Nepal in his address to COP 15 said: “I therefore take this
opportunity to call on all the mountain countries and stakeholders to come
together, form a common platform and make sure that mountain concerns get due
attention in the international deliberations. Let us make sure that our
interests are prominently represented in future COP negotiations and let us
make sure that our efforts towards adaptation obtain the required international
support.” This initiative is known as Mountain Initiative (MI). A technical
meeting of MI was organised in September 2010 by ICIMOD in support of GoN. To
take this momentum at next level the GoN is now preparing to host a Ministerial
Meeting of Mountainous Countries in Kathmandu, Nepal from 5-6 April 2012. Let’s
wish good luck to this marvellous attempt of Nepal!
Indian Mountain
Initiative (May 2011
onwards): Similarly India has also launched
Indian Mountain Initiative (InMI) to ensure sustainable mountain development
across Indian Himalayas, especially in the context of climate change. Led by
the Central Himalayan Environment Association (CHEA), Nainital, IMI had its
Inaugural meeting on 21 May 2011 at the Uttarakhand Academy of Administration (http://www.cheaindia.org/download/briefnoteon_sustainable_mountain_development_summit.pdf).
ICIMOD has been providing technical input in promoting this idea since the
preparation of the Inaugural meeting.
Bhutan
Summit (2010 onwards): Bhutan Climate Summit
for a Living Himalaya was successfully convened in Thimphu on 19 November 2011
with the aim of promoting technical cooperation among four participating
countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indian and Nepal. The Summit was successful in
developing and agreeing a road map for adapting climate change in the
Himalayas, particularly across the southern face of the Eastern Himalayas;
highlighting the issues of climate change and its impacts on the Himalayas;
fostering partnership and networking to facilitate sharing of information and
experience; and in lobbying for bringing attention to the impacts of climate
change on the world mountains. Prior to the main summit there were several
rounds of thematic and technical meetings co-organised by Government of Bhutan
and its technical partner ICIMOD in 2010 and 2011 to develop issue level
understanding among the participating countries. ICIMOD, being a regional
intergovernmental organisation working in all four countries partnering for
this initiative has agreed to provide input since the beginning who organised
the first meeting in this series in August 2010 at Godavari the Village Resort,
Kathmandu, Nepal.
ICIMOD’s Mountain
Day (4 December 2011): ICIMOD participated
in the recently concluded COP17, Durban, in a substantive way, leading an
international team to organise the first ever Mountain Day on the sidelines of
COP17. The rationale and objectives of the event were to a) highlight the
urgent need to raise awareness and sensitise UNFCCC COP17 delegates on the
implications of climate change in the mountain regions; b) to share the
emergence of stronger scientific evidence and implications; and c) to stress
the need for policy actions to ensure the critical contribution of mountain
ecosystems in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable
development. In this regard, ICIMOD joined hands with its global partners
particularly GIZ, the World Bank (WB), The Mountain Partnership Secretariat,
and UNEP.
Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, IPCC Chair, gave the keynote speech and Dr
Pema Gyamtsho, Agriculture, Environment, Forest Minister, Bhutan; Dr René
Castro Salazar, Minister of Environment, Energy and Telecommunication, Costa
Rica; and Mr Hem Raj Tater, Minister of Environment, Nepal, participated in the
panel discussion. Dr David Molden, Director General of ICIMOD, welcomed the
participants and shared the Call for Action. A number of top policy makers from
ICIMOD’s regional member countries and global development partners including
the WB, UNDP, and UNEP also participated in the discussions. Also taking part
were COP17 delegates from more than 14 mountain countries – including 6 of
ICIMOD’s Regional Member Countries.
Mountain Day concluded by issuing a draft call for action which
made a strong plea to mainstream the role of mountains in global processes,
including the UNFCC COP, and to support adaptation in mountains for improved
livelihoods and sustainability by introducing appropriate policies and creating
specific financing windows. ICIMOD took this opportunity to release three
technical publications on mountain climate change. These were, The Status
of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region; Snow-Cover Mapping and
Monitoring in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas; and Climate Change in the Hindu
Kush-Himalayas, which have broken scientific ground in the understanding of
climate change in the region.
Mountain
Forum (MF) and Mountain
Partnership (MP): Formed in 1996 and 2002
(respectively as follow up to ‘Rio Summit’ and World Summit for Sustainable
Development -WSSD), MF and MP are global initiatives advocating Mountain Agenda
internationally in partnership with key regional and global initiatives on
mountains. In the Asia- Pacific region, these initiatives are managed by the Asia
Pacific Mountain Network (APMN)
– a knowledge sharing platform connecting mountain regions and communities
through dialogue and networking. Managed by the ICIMOD, APMN captures,
enriches, and disseminates information on mountain development issues in and
for the Asia-Pacific region. APMN acts as the Asia-Pacific node of Mountain
Forum (MF) and decentralised Mountain Partnership Asia-Pacific Hub, and has
shared resources including dedicated web page, experts database, e-dialogue
platform, thematic and geographic discussion lists, online library, calendar of
events, survey and e-election tool. APMN also publishes biannual Asia Pacific Mountain
Courier, occasional e-dialogue synthesis reports, mountain development briefs
and publicity materials.
Rio+20 (June 2012):
In the 20 years since the 1992 Rio the development challenges have become
multi-dimensional; the paradigms regarding policies, economic growth are
increasingly being influenced by issues of social equity and good
governance, the challenges from climate change, and the global
support to programs in Climate Resilience and Adaptation are slowly
complimenting broader development agenda which values natural resource
endowments or ecosystem services contribution to rural including mountain
development and poverty reduction. Rio+20 is a very important moment to
redefine Mountain Agenda considering progresses made and challenges evolved
over last two decades.
At the end: This is high time to concentrate our
works and prepare best to derive maximum possible benefits from upcoming COP
meetings as well as the Rio+20 meeting later this year. Climate change and
sustainability issues are not sole responsibilities of few countries or
organisations and hence need collective efforts.
________________________
Disclaimer: Information provided in this article are taken from various
websites and publications and wherever possible the source is quoted. This
article was originally published on http://hamrakura.com on
3 January 2011.
(Author of this article Mr. Tek
Jung Mahat is an Environmental Science graduate from the Tribhuvan
University, Nepal and is working on issues related to environment,
sustainability and climate change in Asia. He was one of facilitators of
Nepal’s Mountain Initiative, Bhutan Summit preparation, Mountain Day at COP17
and Rio+20 preparations in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas and South East Asia Region.
In the capacity of APMN Manager, he managed MF activities and facilitated MP
initiatives in the Asia Pacific region from 2007-2011. Currently he leads Asia
Pacific Youth on Rio +20 (Earth Summit 2012); Youth for Sustainable Mountain
Development (Y4SMD) and Media engagement in SMD (M4SMD) initiatives. He
pioneered e-dialogues and e-networking among environment professionals in Nepal
by establishing the Environment Professionals Group in 2005 and established Climate Himalaya Initiative - an independent, informal, and informative network of climate
change professionals in the Himalayas in 2007. Currently he runs a blog Realising CHANGE aiming to inform and empower early and midcareer professionals
working on sustainability issues.)
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