Many experts in related fields deemed the agreement as an ambiguous one, a less than modest bet against all odds. There is perhaps some truth to this because in actively pursuing out the bottoms up approach (where the countries themselves set their greenhouse gas or GHG mitigation targets), the Paris agreement did compromise on its perceived legitimacy to a certain degree. Experts are also troubled by the fact that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has of yet developed no strategies on how to hold countries accountable to their promises.
There is, certainly, a lot of room for improvement, and extremely vulnerable countries with negligible GHG emissions like Nepal could have certainly asked for a much better and fairer deal. But given the bitterness and ill-will the 2009 climate change negotiations ended with, the solidarity built in COP21 was more than what was expected by most. Keeping this in mind, the COP21 should not be taken as the end of climate negotiations but rather the beginning – as a platform for climate change mitigation and climate justice in the coming years.
Less than three decades ago, it would have been difficult to see the manifestations of global warming in Nepal. However, today the 0.85 degree Celsius increase in average global temperature is obvious. According to NAPA, 29 districts in Nepal are highly vulnerable to landslides, 12 to Glacial Lakes Outburst Floods, 22 districts to drought and nine to flooding.
Climate change’s effect in Nepal is manifold. In the past few years we have witnessed average temperature increase (especially in mountainous regions), severe winter droughts, excessive flooding (which has given rise to mass displacement of several populations), increase in threat to public health and biodiversity, shrinking glaciers, and glacial lake outburst floods. It is clear that as a mountainous and extremely poor country with low adaptive capacity, when it comes to the effects climate change, Nepal is in double jeopardy.
With government officials in Nepal still drafting the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), a document that is submitted to the UNFCCC that states voluntary emission limits and mitigation targets of a country, it is important to get a clear perspective on how we want to portray ourselves in the global platform. As the fourth most vulnerable country to climate change, Nepal must focus its efforts towards building adaptation and resilience against extreme weather and geographical events. But it is important not to forget Nepal’s role in GHG mitigation. According to climate change expert and one of the Nepali delegates in COP21, Manjeet Dhakal, the only sustainable way to alleviate Nepal’s crippling poverty rates is to invest in a low carbon, energy efficient future.
“The logics and economics of it is simple”, he says, “Countries like India and China are actively trying to pursue clean energy and are investing in solar, wind, and hydropower. Thus research and investment in clean energy is increasing and as a result such energy options are getting cheaper, pretty soon they will rival and even surpass other energy options. This is the right time for Nepal to follow in their footsteps and develop an infrastructure that is reliant on renewable energies.”
Nepal’s electricity production process is essentially a carbon neutral process as we are almost completely reliant on hydropower that we ourselves produce or import from India. However, according to studies carried out by the Asian Development Bank, Nepal has tapped less than two percent of its economic hydropower potential. Other South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh have tapped around 70%, 47%, and 30% of their economic hydropower potential respectively. India has also utilized about 36% of its total wind potential while Nepal’s is almost negligible at only 9.2 kilowatts out of the potential 3000 megawatts.
We are not obligated to reduce our 0.027% contribution to global GHG emissions right now but actively pursuing a sustainable and energy efficient future is definitely the way to go. This would also help us mitigate immediate environmental impacts like air and water pollution that rapidly developing economies like India and China are facing today.
Change is a daunting prospect and the Nepal’s transition to carbon neutral energy in the future is not without its fair share of psychological, financial, and political hurdles. But while people’s mentality can be changed relatively easily, the financial hurdles to clean energy are all too real. GHG mitigation goals can be set and achieved in Nepal via carbon taxing, cap-and-trade systems and subsidies for renewable energy. However, transition to renewable energy brings a different set of hurdles in the form of promotion costs, upfront establishment costs, bloated transactions as a result of decentralized mechanisms and damage to existing economy by loss of jobs.
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This is where the Paris agreement can be of help to Nepal. The Clean Development Mechanism adopted in COP21 allows developed countries with emission mitigation or limitation commitment to help developing countries with similar agendas. If such emissions mitigation is achieved in the developing countries, then the credit is taken by developed countries as contribution towards their own targets. As a least-developed country Nepal will not only be able to take advantage of such policy but also be privy to a part of the $100 billion in assistance that stronger economies have promised smaller countries annually.
But to tap these opportunities, Nepal needs to prepare for the 2020 COP with a lot of vigor. According to Dhakal what the members of such conference respond to are simple: tact and fact. “Diplomacy is key”, he says, “But the importance of good, solid facts can never be underestimated. Solid, objective facts and figures about the effects of climate change will put Nepal on the central stage. This will create the momentum required for change.”
There is little doubt that the COP should be of great significance to Nepal and the Nepalis people in the years to come. It is not just a means to increase our climate adaptability and resilience but it is also an opportunity for sustainable infrastructure development and poverty alleviation. However, it would be wrong to assume that our future lies entirely in the hands of the big economies alone. There is much to be done before the COP22. We must delegate, we must do our research, we must complete our homework, and we must get it right this time. The future of Nepal is, more than ever, in our own hands.
sneha.pandey@hotmail.com
