Time to Put Forth Core Climate Concerns of Most Affected Communities

Devendra Gautam of Nepal Verified News had a conversation with Madhukar Upadhyay, a senior watershed expert, on climate change, its impact on Nepal and the government’s coping strategies as part of an ongoing climate conversation.
Excerpts:  

Climate change is real

It’s quite fancy to talk about climate change, global warming, Himalayas shedding considerable amounts of snow year by year, glacial retreat, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and the impact of it all on billions of people living downstream based on academic research. It’s a great academic exercise.

But bearing the severest brunt of these effects is a different matter altogether.

It was just last year, right? Just close by Kathmandu, a rain-swollen Nakkhu river wreaked havoc, displacing communities and even resulting in a loss of life. This was but one of several such instances that resulted in loss of lives and properties in great numbers.
While we are talking about climate change, a rain-swollen Roshi has swept away parts of the BP Highway.

For three consecutive years, the winter has hardly seen any rain. Millions of people like me rely on water from the hills also. I, for example, relied solely on waters from the Shivpuri hills before the Melamchi project started supplying water. Climate shocks have affected us too.  

Drought conditions persisting over the decades have been causing internal displacement over the years. Data from the Department of Statistics have brought to light this unfolding crisis.  

A climate-induced exodus

Lived experiences and studies suggest that a prolonged drought is the reason why people have been leaving villages in hilly areas in droves every year, leaving village after village after village empty, despite the government’s efforts to retain populations there by building infrastructure like roads. By the way, roads have become synonymous with development in our context. Roads also impact fragile hills, but talking about the environmental impact of such infra on fragile hills is akin to obstructing development.

At the community level, at the people’s level, what have climate change, global warming and climate-induced disasters been doing?
Causing increasing instances of crop diseases, pest activities, etc that lead to crop failure. Drying up of water bodies like rivers, lakes and ponds….. As I mentioned earlier, exodus and emptying of rural settlements.

These are not mere data, these are everyday experiences of a people that have been bearing the severest brunt of climate change and global warming despite a nominal carbon footprint.

Loss and damage

Experts, government officials keep talking about reparations from industrialized countries for intensified loss and damage resulting from increasing emissions and rising global temperatures. Even as we talk about this, the United States under President Donald Trump has walked out of the Paris Agreement.

We keep talking about seeking damages for climate-induced disasters though it has become evident that the big polluters won’t pay.

By the way, how do we determine which country should pay how much? All this is becoming a futile exercise….
Even if we get reparations, even if we get climate financing, how will we spend it? What are our plans and strategies? What is the guarantee that part of the big money will trickle down?
 

Rising temperatures

The key climate deal had envisaged limiting the rise in temperatures to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Notwithstanding this commitment, before talking to you, I was reading a report that mentioned periods in which global temperatures had crossed that limit. So, even this 1.5-degree limit is becoming irrelevant. What do we do? Make a fresh pledge to not let the temperatures rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius?

No coping strategy

Even before this notion of climate change came into being, signs that something was seriously wrong were here, there, everywhere, weren’t they? Pests and diseases causing crop losses, water bodies drying up were some of the clear indications. But what did the government do? What were our coping strategies? Was there much thought on developing resilience?

Let it not be another talk shop

The government is holding Sagarmatha Sambaad, Nepal’s first global dialogue to draw the attention of the world to the disproportionate effects of climate change that the country has been experiencing despite a nominal carbon footprint.

The much-awaited global climate dialogue, delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is a good beginning.
Nonetheless, the government could have done it better. It should have initiated discussions at local, provincial and central levels to set the agendas for such an important event by adopting a bottom-up approach.

This way, it could have rallied the entire nation for a great cause by giving voice to the concerns of the most affected communities. That could have been an appropriate way to spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned monies.

What will be the measure of the dialogue’s success? Who will be answerable to the taxpayers if they raise concerns about the efficacy of the event?

My best wishes for the success of the event, with a fervent hope that it does not turn out to be a mere talk shop.