Nepal, a least-developed, mountainous, and landlocked country is consistently ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries to the climate change. Poor socioeconomic development, rough and highly unstable geography, inadequate institutional capacity to deal with research, development and policy and mostly underdeveloped infrastructures, all have contributed to increasing vulnerability of communities and ecosystems, and have limited their adaptive capacity. Over the past decade, Nepal has made significant progress, particularly in developing and implementing policies and frameworks and establishing institutional mechanisms with the support of donor countries, UN and multilateral agencies. As the global climate politics is getting more complicated, international financing patterns-both climate and development finance-are shifting their ways, forcing the countries like Nepal to diversify the funding base for climate change actions and integrate them within national development plans and strategies. Using the data and information currently available, we analyze the existing financing situations, discuss the future scenarios and suggest policy recommendations to develop a set of long-term adaptation and impact mitigation strategies in specific and environmental change at large. When short-term adaptation strategies funded from existing financial arrangements and other related bilateral and multilateral sources particularly European countries, seem to be encouraging, we stress the need of "public-private partnership-driven full-fledged green economy" focusing on renewable energy and transport, agriculture and forestry, water and water-induced disasters, as well as tourism and hospitality.
Two and half-decades of experience in implementing environmental assessment (EA) tools through policies and legislations have contributed to integrating environmental aspects into development projects in Nepal. The Enforcement of Environment Protection Act (EPA) of 1996 and the Environment Protection Rules (EPR) of 1997 have expanded the application of EA tools for the prescribed proposals. After the enforcement of EPA and EPR, the government has approved the EIA reports of 72 projects. In 2006 alone, EIA reports of 22 projects were approved. In general, however, approval of EIA reports has no meaning unless they are effectively implemented. The benefits of EA could be realised after environmental monitoring and auditing that helps to know the level of compliance and effectiveness of mitigation measures. This article outlines the causes of delay decision and major initiatives taken to make the EA more effective, realistic and practical.
Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment Vol. 1, No. 2(2008) pp. 13-16
Climate change brings lasting changes in forests and biodiversity together with the ecosystem services altering its ability to support present and future economic activities. Current forest utilization and preservation is based on how forests developed under past climatic conditions. Policy-makers and forest managers must accept that climate change is inevitable and from which forests and forest communities are significantly impacted globally and in Nepal also, sustainable forest management (SFM) is already based on many measures to adapt to climate change as planned adaptation will reduce vulnerability at intervened sites and will have long term impacts. However, many forest species will be adapting autonomously and society will have to adjust to the result. Adaptation requires planning for change so that a suite of options for the future but based on the present practice and knowledge is to be available whenever needed. On the foundation of concurrent learning, knowledge and experiences of National Adaption Program of Action (NAPA) process, the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process for forests and biodiversity will build medium and long-term adaptation strategies and plans with widely accepted objectives of future forests and biodiversity management. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for NepalVol. 27, No. 2, 2017, page: 21-31
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