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Covid-19 has been terrible to this world. But there is something worse we could face: a full-blown climate crisis. If you want to understand the kind of damages that climate change will impose, as Bill Gates puts it, look at Covid-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time. The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic would be much less compared to the damages wrought by carbon emissions.

The world did not do enough to prepare for the pandemic. We can avoid making the same mistake with climate change. There is no single silver bullet to stop climate change but increased soil organic carbon (SOC) has been recognized as one of the best, most cost-effective, and environment-friendly options for climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as for combating food insecurity, desertification, and land degradation.

SOC is a complex mixture of carbon compounds, consisting of decomposing plant and animal tissue, microbes (protozoa, nematodes, fungi, and bacteria), and carbon associated with soil minerals. Carbon can remain stored in soils for millennia, or be quickly released back into the atmosphere. Climatic conditions, natural vegetation, soil texture, and drainage all affect the amount and length of time carbon gets stored.

Through the process of photosynthesis, plants assimilate carbon and return some of it to the atmosphere through respiration. The carbon that remains as plant tissue is then consumed by animals or added to the soil as litter when plants die and decompose. The primary way that carbon is stored in the soil is as SOC.

The degradation of one-third of the world's soils has already released up to 78 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere. Conventional farming or highly mechanized agriculture with a monoculture of crops and extensive use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, nematodes to promote plant growth has resulted in the degradation of more than 30 percent of the world's soil, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Also read: Opinion | The story behind my roti-maker

If degradation of soil and business-as-usual agricultural practices continues, it is likely that more carbon will be lost to the atmosphere than can be sequestered into the soil. Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change so it must be sequestered.

Carbon sequestration is the long-term storage of carbon in oceans, soil, vegetation (especially forests), and geological formation. It includes the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the form of SOC.

Regenerative agriculture or traditional agricultural practices help to enhance carbon matter in the soil. Some recommended management practices (RMP) that leads to soil organic carbon sequestration are mulch farming, conservation tillage, agroforestry, diverse cropping systems, cover crops, and integrated nutrient management, including the use of manure, biosolid, improved grazing and forest management.

Improved soil organic carbon is the best for plant growth and increased food production: it is a win-win for both world food security and global climate change.

We thus see a close relationship between soil carbon sequestration and world food security, which can neither be overemphasized nor ignored.

It is said that the soil carbon pool is 3.3 times the size of the atmospheric carbon pool and 4.5 times what animals and plants can store. Also, the soil has the potential to offset 5-15 percent of global fuel emissions.

There is an urgent need to transform our present land management practices and conventional agriculture to sustainable land management and regenerative organic agricultural practices so that our soil becomes fertile and healthy.

Healthy and fertile soil can store the maximum amount of carbon and can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Soil scientist and winner of World Food Price (2020) Rattan Lal says carbon in soil is like water in a cup. If we drink some of it, we can again fill up the cup.

The author is a student at the Institute of Forestry, Pokhara Campus

Nepal is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change and its effects, including severe water-induced disasters and extreme hydro-meteorological events such as drought, storms, floods and inundation, landslides, debris flows, soil erosion, and avalanches.

The energy-related Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions accounting for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for climate change. For a reasonable likelihood of staying below 1.5 °C of global warming, net anthropogenic GHG emissions should decline by around 45 percent by 2030, from 2010 levels, reaching net-zero by around 2050. As a result, many governments are proposing GHG reduction and/or net-zero emission policies.

At present more than Rs 200 billion a year is used to import fossil fuels in Nepal, which is around 10 percent of our GDP. The demand for fossil fuel here is expected to rise six times in 2050 compared to 2010. While the rest of the world is gearing up to cut dependency on fossil fuels, such exponential growth in demand for petroleum products in Nepal is alarming. The rapid increase in the loss of Nepal Oil Corporation due to the high demand for subsidized imported fuels is a serious threat to the national economy. It is high time for strategic decisions and impactful action to help Nepal transition to carbon neutrality and energy independence.

Hydropower development has been a national priority, with more than 20,000 MW of projects under different stages of development. The forecast domestic demand for electricity for the next few years is much lower than its production. The peak demand for electricity for 2021 was already lower than installed capacity. By the end of 2028, Nepal could have an excess of 3500 MW of installed hydropower projects, whose production might go to waste if proper energy management and policies are not soon defined.

Export of excess hydroelectricity through a cross-border grid connecting South Asian countries is being discussed. But geopolitical complexities and high energy prices in Nepal may limit this possibility. Increasing domestic consumption of electricity by such a large amount in a short period seems impractical too. There is thus a need for a consolidated approach to replace the surging demand for fossil fuels with the surplus supply of electricity.

Also read: Nepal’s Tarai plains have a Chinese dream

Hydrogen is one of the globally emerging carriers of renewable electricity, contributing to a low carbon economy. Hydrogen is extracted from water using an electro-chemical machine called an electrolyzer. The hydrogen gas produced from renewable energy sources is green hydrogen. At present, the average cost of green hydrogen on the international market is $3-5 a kg, and the target is to bring it below $1 a kg by the end of this decade. Groundbreaking research and innovation and policy-based interventions to promote renewables as the primary supply of energy is pushing green hydrogen to overtake fossil fuel both technically and economically.

Hydrogen alone could be responsible for 22 percent of global energy demand by 2050, from less than 0.1 percent at present. Oil-producing counties in the Gulf have already started investing in mega-scale green hydrogen production from solar panels installed in deserts. Oman is preparing a 30GW green hydrogen production facility, ahead of UAE with 25GW. Saudi Arabia is about to complete a 4GW production facility in its zero-carbon Neom City. India has announced its “National Hydrogen Mission for Energy Independence by 2047” by pumping $1.35 trillion on hydrogen infrastructure.  Australia, Canada, China, and the US are also announcing their mega-scale projects. Strategic investments at present will lead to a higher share of the global market in green hydrogen in the future.

Green hydrogen can be produced with daily and seasonal variations in electricity demand and supply. This can be effective in maintaining the quality and reliability of the national grid, increasing productivity for end-users. For the run-off-river projects, green hydrogen can act as a virtual reservoir in wet seasons. In Nepal, the projected surplus electricity energy ranges from a minimum of 2,102 GWh for 2022 to 16,820 GWh for 2028. When this surplus energy is used to produce hydrogen, annual production will vary between a minimum of 8,410 tons with 20 percent surplus energy utilization in 2022, to a maximum of 336,384 tons with 100 percent utilization in 2028.

Hydrogen produced in 2028 can replace approximately 1.2 million kL of gasoline fuels from the transport and industrial sectors in Nepal. About 80,000 tons of green hydrogen can meet the current national demand of 800,000 tons of urea fertilizer a year. Use of green hydrogen as a clean heat in household and industrial applications can reduce dependency on solid fuels, coal, LPG, and furnace oils by large amounts. There are possibilities for existing and future process-based industries like mining and steel, vegetable ghee, and chemical industries to create demand for green hydrogen locally and promote sustainable low-carbon industrial development.

Also read: Opinion | Time to tweak our electoral system

There is a need for a consolidated program initiated and owned by the government to establish and incubate a green hydrogen economy for Nepal, and to prepare the business sector to take over commercial applications in a competitive manner in local, regional, and international markets.

It is high time for energy transition in Nepal with proper use of its immense hydropower and abundant solar energy sources to strategically replace fossil fuels in both commercial and residential sectors. Green hydrogen can play a vital role as an energy carrier and could be one of the promising links in energy transition for Nepal. This will have a significant impact on the energy mix of the country and energy export alternatives. The transition process demands strong political and social commitments, high-level knowledge transfers from university to the industry and business sector, and willingness from the commercial and business sectors to diversify their income with green hydrogen.

Kathmandu University (KU) has recently established the Green Hydrogen Lab with a vision “Nepalese industries specialized to produce, store, transport, and use green hydrogen energy at a commercial level”. KU has been conducting research to adapt global technological advancements in the context of Nepal and lobbying the government, private and other stakeholders for policy-based intervention of green hydrogen.

Recently, the Ministry of Energy has formed a coordination committee under the secretariat of the Water and Energy Commission to study the role of green hydrogen for balancing demand and supply of hydropower. The study report is expected to recommend a policy-level decision to open the door for incubating businesses based on green hydrogen technology for the public and private sectors.

The author is Team Leader, Green Hydrogen Lab and Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kathmandu University

For the longest time in my life, I thought people who talked about feelings were ‘sentimental’ folks. Perhaps that is why I didn’t care to check-in with my own feelings. The closest I came to answering the question ‘How are you feeling?’ would be three words used as a standard reply in three distinct situations: ‘Babbal’ (when things were to my liking), ‘Khattam’ (when things weren’t to my liking), and ‘Sabai thikai cha’ (when I wasn’t in the mood to reflect).

Just like the younger version of me, I have come across many who find it hard to answer that question with any insight. From my own experience, I can tell you why it is a problem. Lack of self-awareness can cause pain for ourselves and others. Previously, whenever I used to feel disappointed (I didn’t know how to label it ‘disappointment’ at the time), I used to react in a way that was perceived as anger by the other person. The other person’s standard response would be to say ‘Narisau na’ or ‘Khali risau cha’.

This response, of course, wasn’t attuned to my emotional experience. I was feeling disappointed and this person asked me not to get angry. This would then lead me to feel frustrated, as I wasn’t understood. As you can imagine, this cycle wasn’t helpful at all—filled as it was with miscommunication and misunderstanding. What was the root cause of it? Well, I hadn’t learnt to reflect on my feelings. As for the other person, they didn’t guess any other feelings in me other than anger.

Emotional literacy—the ability to identify, understand and express emotions positively—is one of the foundational skills of Emotional Intelligence. Unless we know how we are feeling, we aren’t in a position to understand what our needs are (emotions are data that signal whether our needs are met or unmet) and make this information understandable to others. What then happens is largely based on assumptions about others and ourselves, leading to misunderstanding, miscommunication and conflict.

Also read: ‘Being emotional’ vs ‘discussing emotions’

Although I wasn’t very emotionally literate back then, I have realized that the skills of emotional literacy can be learnt. Instead of categorizing our emotional states as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, what might happen if individuals learnt to tune in to feelings, gave those names and then leaned toward those emotions to help them in their goals? A good place to start is to identify basic emotions in oneself.

There are eight basic emotions based on Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions: anger (Ris), Anticipation (Apekchya), Disgust (Ghrina), Fear (Dar), Joy (Ananda), Surprise (Acchamma), Sadness (Dukha) and Trust (Biswas). What’s helpful to unlearn is the notion that these emotions are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The problem with labeling emotions as bad is that we will then push away feelings like anger and sadness without trying to learn from them. Emotional literacy is about acknowledging, identifying, labeling and understanding our emotional states so that we can make better decisions. This understanding can also be extended to developing empathy. Being able to see emotions as simply data about human needs, values and expectations can help us be more open to the emotional experiences of others.

Rather than getting stuck with judging emotional experiences as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we could all become more self-aware and empathetic if we learnt to recognize and understand these emotions. It begins with acknowledging we all experience different pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Each day, take a moment to reflect on your day by identifying the above-mentioned eight basic emotions.

All these feelings are valuable as they help direct our attention to what’s important to us. Using the same framework, you can guess and ask others about their emotional states. Instead of assuming if someone is angry, you might want to check in with them and see if they are indeed angry or perhaps slightly disgusted or just fearful or even sad. A healthy relationship is one in which individuals are granted permission to feel a broad range of pleasant and unpleasant feelings—not just the ones deemed ‘good’. 

The author is co-founder of My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. Learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

Time has come to reform the existing electoral system that encourages rampant political corruption and use of money and muscle in election campaigns.

The current electoral system promotes contractors and moneyed men, whose undue influence in politics harm devoted and honest political workers with limited money and few political connections. Those in the latter group seldom get party tickets. That is why there is an urgent need to enact vital changes in the electoral system in order to revitalize democratic institutions and revive people’s faith in democracy. 

Now, the federal House of Representatives has 275 members. Under the mixed electoral system currently in practice, 165 members are elected under the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system, and the remaining 111 under the Proportional Representation (PR) system. Government formation is comparably easier under the FPTP system where candidates with the most votes are elected even without a majority. More seats are won with fewer votes.

Actually, many votes are not represented and go to waste. For example, in the 1991 election, the Nepali Congress secured 110 seats (53.66 percent) in the 205-member House of Representatives with only 36.74 percent votes, leaving 63.36 percent voters without any say in the country’s governance.

In a least developed country like Nepal where many voters are illiterate and poor, they are easily lured and intimidated by candidates. Likewise, caste, clan, ethnicity, and creed play important roles in winning elections. Money and muscle decide electoral outcomes. By the end of the 18th century, globally, the FPTP system started getting replaced by Proportional Representation (PR) system, and the trend continues.

Also read: Nepal’s remittance trap

Nepal, for its part, adopted the FPTP system in the 1959 parliamentary election, and continued with it in 1991, 1994, and 1999 elections. It only switched to a mixed electoral system in the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections. The new constitution followed suit, allocating different proportions of seats under FPTP and PR segments.

Nepal’s choice of a mixed system confirms that its leaders realize the demerits of the FPTP system. Most prominently, in a participatory democracy, election is all about representations, and so the PR system was incorporated, as greater representation under PR is a more ethical choice.

In the PR system, it is the party that gets the votes. It is a less expensive system with candidates not personally involved in the electoral process. Their credibility and integrity are not at stake. Candidates need not spend unlimited money because their election is not guaranteed.

The PR system has not been allowed to function properly in Nepal. Political parties hardly choose candidates fairly. Senior political leaders nominate their kith and kin under this category. Honest political workers are pushed to the margins.  

Money also plays a role in securing party nominations: Ironically, the ‘closed PR’ priority list can be tweaked to suit the leaders.

Also read: Nepal’s Tarai plains have a Chinese dream

Representatives elected under the PR system are looked down upon as they do not represent specific geographic areas and are, it is argued, not even people’s representatives. In the PR system, the link between elected legislators and their constituents is weak. Plus, the link between voters and their representatives is also tenuous.

A new hybrid system integrating the merits of the two systems while minimizing their demerits is warranted for countries like Nepal. In this system, proportionality under the PR system will decide the number of seats the parties get as per their national vote-share.

However, every candidate will be connected to a constituency in the PR list, where, to be elected, he/she will have to receive the most votes as per the FPTP system. The preference of candidates in the PR list will not guarantee his/her victory unless they secure most votes. This provides a better link between the legislators and the constituents. But getting most votes also does not guarantee election unless the candidate falls under the PR quota.

Significantly, under FPTP, candidates with the most votes will not be elected, as the seats available to parties are limited under the PR scheme. All parties will have seats in proportion to the national votes, their numbers to be determined as per the natural threshold. To have meaningful representation, different segments of the society like women, Dalit, Janajati will be prioritized.

In the integrated system, getting the most votes in a constituency will not guarantee victory, as the seats to be secured by the parties are limited in proportion to the votes received nationally under the PR scheme. If victory is not guaranteed, no one will spend big or think of using muscle-power.

The uncertainty of winning will not only deter candidates from spending unlimited money but also reduce political corruption. Moreover, with money no longer a concern, there will be more qualified candidates in the field. This will ultimately increase people’s faith in democracy.

Mishra is a former election commissioner