Climate Change, Is It a Burning Issue of Nepal?

Most of the organizations working in Nepal are providing a discussion topic, climate change. Either NGOS or INGOS, the relation with their major activities has been added with the suffix ‘climate change’. Waste and climate change, human health and climate change, road and climate change, prime minister and climate change, politics and climate change, forest and climate change, child and climate change, water and climate change, fight and climate change etc are so called burning issues in Nepal.

It is the reality that climate change has impacted the globe. There is no doubt that Nepal being the part of the globe has a tremendous effect of climate change. The political situation went wrong in Nepal has also been regarded as the part of climate change. Thus, the real scene of climate change has been diverted from the Nepalese society. The terminology ‘climate change’ has been used elsewhere without any proper justification. It is being misused by numbers of organizations and itself government working in the area of climate change. While attending climate change related programs or seminars, it will be much more difficult to understand their result related to climate change. The results are real but not practical oriented and seems like copied from the developed countries.  It is a simple example where input is highly expended but far behind the real problems with practical solution.

What Nepal lacks, where is it suffering, what is to be done? are the real questions that should be related with climate change?  Let’s discuss, what Nepal has done? It is participating with a huge crowd in CoP (Conference of the Parties). Since 2009, Nepalese politics also get influenced by climate change. Former PM, Madhab Kumar Nepal led Government conducted a ministry level meeting in base camp of Sagarmatha, Kalapatthar to symbolize the impacts of climate change in Nepal. Government participation in international climate change program is also increasing. The climate change policy has also been prepared. Similarly, National adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) has been prepared and different LAPA (Local Plan of Action) are being prepared. Using the same terminology, CAPA (Community Adaptation Plan of Action) is also prepared by different organizations. Many research oriented activities in the books, journals etc. These are the some of the action of Nepal to combat with climate change.

What the real scenario, what we are doing? It is the real issue of climate change. It is easy to know or understand that the impacts of climate change is very high because of its altitudinal variation (6o m asl to 8848 m asl). Within this high variation, a least statistical change has more influence on every aspects of the total environment. The impacts are different and it’s difficult to study too. Within a small spherical area, a large variation in the climate and environment can be seen. The change in agricultural calendar, increase in natural disaster like landslide, flood, drought are more pronounced. The low yield in agriculture has more influence on the local farmers. Now, how we need to tackle these problems are the real burning issues? The real field based approach is necessary to study it and tackle it. What type of crops is to be cultivated, how can we improve irrigation system, how can we increase the yield of the crops, how can we manage the markets are the real burning issues of Nepal.

So far I am also related with the topic, climate change. I have graduated in environmental science from the Tribhuvan University. The dissertation, I chose, was on the same theme as I discussed above i.e. climate change impacts on the Phakhel communities of Kulekhani Watershed Area. During the research period, I stayed there for a month. The real problems related with climate change are low yield in agriculture (drought, untimely rainfall), new pest infestation (Gathe Rog in cauliflower and cabbage), landslide, flood, drought etc. During the interview time, when I asked about the agricultural products of the recent years of that area, nearly forty year old Tamang lady of ward no. five scolded me. She wept and asked a question “Can you support me during my starvation after collecting these data’s? I had provided data to numbers of people just like you every year; no one came to solve the problem. You are enjoying in your job”. This question made me speechless. My dissertation research of this topic seems to complete master’s thesis but unable to solve the real problem. Now, it is clear that the real impact of climate change is the starvation. The issue raised by that woman is the real burning issue of climate change as she symbolizes Nepalese farmers suffering from climate change. The similar issue has been shared during seminars, conferences organized by NGOS/INGOS/GON expending a huge amount of money without the real solution on the grassroots level. The approach, program or research to solve her problem is the real solution of climate change issue to be solved by the NGOs/ INGOs/ GOs rather than advertising the propagandas of climate change and adding ‘climate change’ suffix in their programs.

Finally, Nepal is receiving huge amount of funds from the donor. It is necessary to prioritize the real problem and made clear to all the donor organizations for the real field base program to tackle the issues. If not done, the real problem will be increasing and the statistics on finely hard covered reports always speak on the problem of climate change as hot burning issue of Nepal. Hope that the students of Masters Level are to be guided to prepare their dissertation to seek the real problem and to be there with practical solution.

Rajan Subedi

M Sc. in environmental Science

rsrajansubedi@gmail.com

9841895557