This past week, Kathmandu was buzzing with the work on the ideas of climate change, its impact on the whole of South Asian region and combined effort to adapt and mitigate the problems henceforth. Ministers, secretaries, government officials, researchers, media, academics, activists from the South Asian countries along with donor agencies joined hands together in a comprehensive platform to discuss for the first time in the history of the region about the commonalities of climate change, challenges and opportunities in those challenges.
Called Kathmandu to Copenhagen 2009, the conference tried to find a common vision for addressing climate change risks and vulnerabilities in the Himalayas’. For once, the government of Nepal, with support from donor agencies, was successful in taking the lead in the issue of climate change.
After the two days of deliberations, the Kathmandu conference came out with a declaration, which stressed the need to translate the principles of common, but differentiated responsibilities into operational practice. Some of the ideas that were floated and later made it to the final declaration were that the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region was a Climate Change hotspot that influences the lives of half the world’s population. With less than 100 days to go for the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, the regional ministerial conference zeroed in on a common agenda to push at the world summit for the Himalayan region where more than 1 billion people will be affected due to global warming. The end note was “adaptation rather than mitigation.”
myrepublica.com chatted with Claudia W. Sadoff, lead economist for South Asia Water Resources at the World Bank on the issues of climate change, the conference and Nepal’s rocky road to climate change adaptation. World Bank has just announced the start off of their ambitious Pilot Program for Climate Resilience and Nepal was the first recipient of the project with a 60-million dollar fund. Sadoff has been working in Nepal on the issues of climate change for the past one year and was one of the main brains behind the work of World Bank in climate change funds and the two-day regional conference.
Excerpts
Whose initiation was the K2C Conference?
The initiation and vision for the conference came from the government of Nepal. World Bank is certainly interested to support any initiation in climate change activities in Nepal. There was a lot of interest in trying to build momentum in climate change activities in Nepal and also to formulate strategy moving to Copenhangen and to bring coherence to regional priorities. There were four donor partners who worked very carefully together and very much in response to the leadership taken by the government.
Why was the World Bank interested in this sort of conference?
One of the reasons it was particularly interesting to us was because of our interest in progressing work on climate change in Nepal. Over the course of time that this program was being developed, the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) was also under discussion and came into fruition with Nepal. Within Nepal, it was clearly an area where we saw ourselves in a position to give an increasing assistance and therefore interested in broader discussions in the topic. But also in the region broadly, there is interest in the World Bank to promote regional cooperation and collaboration across areas such as climate, water, transport, trade, energy where we see unexploited opportunity. The sense right now is that the opportunities have become quite ripe. One of the aspects very interesting with climate change is that while climate change is not a phenomenon we would wish on any region, and it’s an unfortunate reality, it can also be a real motivator for cooperation. The uncertainties of climate change and in which it raises the stakes for cooperation both in terms of what can be gained and what can be lost by not cooperating, climate change really helps motivate cooperation because the challenges are generally too big for individual countries, especially like that of Nepal.
In South Asia, you have massive shared river systems and these massive weather systems that could be responded to by cooperation only. The kind of early warning system that you need, or researches that you should have of the region to predict where and how your rainfall patterns are changing and what is that going to mean for the stream flow for your farmers and flood and drought that would endanger your most vulnerable populations. All that requires a very sophisticated understanding of a larger geographic space than any single individual country. So, looking at those risks and looking at those opportunities to address them, I think this is a very positive motivator for cooperation even though the phenomenon itself is not very positive.
How are we preparing for climate change impacts?
There has always been climate adaptation in Nepal. There is a history of migration, shifting of cultivation patterns, shifting of population distribution, movements between the mountains, hills and the terai. So in a sense, adaptation is a continuation of flexible lifestyle that the country has always had. But in terms of looking forward to a larger scale on more rapid adaptation, the sorts of work that Nepal has done in community forestry that can help in mitigation of green house gas release, the micro-hydro power development Nepal has done significantly well which can provide clean energy and diminish the need for biomass burning; these are obvious areas where Nepal has already begun the kind of work that might need to be upgraded.
The hope would be any new hydro power would provide clean energy and also could work as strategic water storage to assist in guarding against drought and flood. The kind of geography Nepal hails is very favorable for creating storage with a minimum footprint due to tall craggy hills at a minimal cost. There is also possibility of irrigation water for cultivation for farmers who can no longer predict the monsoon patterns. This is a great opportunity for both mitigation and adaptation.
The change in climatic variation that we see now and more we see in near future, are we prepared to deal with it?
I think policy wise, Nepal, like many other countries is still on an exploratory phase to try to find a really robust strategy. So, the government has just recently presented the National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) which is one of the processes. The PPCR could be another opportunity for large scale financing that highlight the kind of adaptation Nepal should be looking for. The truth of the matter is the accelerated climate change is something unprecedented. There are no models and even if there were you would not be able to see and distinguish what Japan has done to apply because we are talking about very specific and localized impact that is a complicated global phenomenon. Nepal has such a micro climate and cultural dependence on natural resources that all responses here will be extremely contextualized. The NAPA consultations has focused on reaching out to stakeholders and going to the region and talking to people about what they see in their climate and what it is doing to them and how they can adapt. The way PPCR will start tomorrow is with two-day intensive stakeholder’s meet and consultations. The strategy is to find what the risk, range of impact might be and try to find some practical promising pilots that can be tried. There is no ready-made plan unfortunately. We just do not know what to expect. For each place, the answer is going to have to be very different.
Flood and drought early warning systems, the creation of raised spaces as safe havens for flood, additional strategic groundwater wells for drought, the need for understanding what the changes in weather might mean for change in cropping patterns, the additional collection of rain water and rain water harvesting, small scale supplemental irrigation to pull farmers through the weeks of uncertainty of downpour on time. But the adaptation ranges. This is why it becomes such a complicated to see what can be done where and so it becomes such an important consultative process where the most extreme risks are and where the most promising opportunities are.
Is environment-friendly development projects possible?
It is the most desirable possible thing to wish for, to incorporate climate change in development planning. I think Nepal is in a very good moment in history for that kind of strategy. Nepal is in the middle of writing a new constitution and has lot of things in mind as a new republic. But adaptation at its best is sustainable resilient development planning. Since Nepal is on the verge of major change in the historical path, I believe, you are also on the verge of New Nepal. The impacts of climate change have already been felt across Nepal.
If the pain and challenges of communities are heard and recognized and addressed, then by definition, the development path that has been chosen in the years ahead will be more climate resilient.
How can we better equip ourselves when we have limited specific scientific research to suggest the direct impacts of climate change on everyday life of people.
The hard truth is the best climate studies in the world still leave tremendous range of uncertainty. So, while a lot of research is called for and necessary, there is also the danger of saying that once the certain number of studies is done to a certain level of specificity or rigour, then you begin your climate adaptation. I think it’s very clear that there are certain things that we can do now to protect people today from the weather and climate variability of today that will build resilience in the future. I don’t think we need to wait. Right now, better water management, enhanced reforestation, greater energy efficiency, better flood and drought warning system and preparedness, these are all good investments right now and could build resilience tomorrow.
How useful was the Kathmandu to Copenhagen Conference? What did it achieve?
I think it was a real milestone in many ways. On a global level, the issues of mountains haven’t had quite an attention. There is a lot of special focus on low lying states and small island states which clearly deserve the focus. There are specific risks in mountains too and opportunities in adaptation in the mountains. That topic area hasn’t gotten any particular or emphasized attention that it should. So, to see a group of countries come together to discuss on these particular issues on a global level is very delightful. On a regional level, it’s even more important because so much of what happens in this region due to climate change will cross borders and so many of the best adaptations reponses will also need to cross borders including information sharing in a coordinated action. Having the first of such discussion in South Asia on their expectations and priorities regarding climate change and challenges that they face are really positive sides of it.
The delegates spent hours together for an agreed statement. The value that conversation brings up is very significant. Finally for Nepal in particular, the combination of two conferences in a row was a wonderful opportunity to really focus and immerse on the challenges. Even for the run-up to the conference, tremendous amount of work was done.
Hours of presentation were heard, studies commissioned specifically for this conference. There was a momentum in the government’s side for the event leading up to this conference. There has been a lot of new knowledge and opportunity for stakeholders and ministries to share their responsibilities and challenges. This has been a fantastic mechanism to focus interest on the government and also to hear from the stakeholders.
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