Major global climate change policies: Nepal's policy response

Abstract

Climate Change is one of the rising issues in contemporary world. A slew of severe climatic consequences emerges, including disturbance of the hydrological cycle, fast glacier melting, and extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. These fast climatic changes are limiting human existence and have significant ramifications for critical supplies of livelihood and development such as water, food, and energy. Adapting to severe climatic consequences while also transforming its development model to efficient and renewable energy sources in order to meet the long-term goal of the Paris Climate Agreement (2015) is difficult. Climate change issue came into debate after Stockholm Conference, 1972. United Nation is biggest platform to deal with climate change with making difference treaties and accords and is helping to make policies internationally and domestically. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), U N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Kyoto Protocol, and Paris agreement are key policies making base regarding climate change. Despite having huge consensus on those agreements and accords, still difficult on implementation and this is major challenge of global climate change policies. Nepal imust adapt to these negative iclimatic changes while still contributing isuccessfully to the 2015 iParis iClimate Agreement targets without jeopardizing iits economic development. Being much ivulnerable iin case of climate change, Nepal isuccessfully working with policies and different institutional imechanism more on adaptation. Nepal's National Climate iChange iPolicy (2019), Fifteenth Periodic Plan iand Sustainable development goals focus on iattaining ilong-term idevelopment via climate resilience. iClimate resilient development, on the other hand, inecessitates specific measurable and achievable mitigation iand adaptation targets, as well as ia iwell-coordinated institutional structure of itracking and facilitation from the center iand a well-informed and resourceful iclimate response structure at the local ilevel. iIn ipolicy iframeworks, such an integrated and iinclusive iapproach iexists, ibut it is not successfully incorporated in the institutional structure. Keywords: Climate Change Policy, Nepal, Mitigation, Adaptation