Editorial: Go green

Petroleum pipelines in a country that can light homes, run industries, mass transit systems with the green energy—hydroelectricity—with a little bit of planning. How does it sound? Sounds a bit odd, regressive even, doesn’t it? Well, it should. In international fora, Nepal has pledged to reduce emissions drastically. Submitting its 2020 Nationally Determined Commitments (NDC) to the UNFCC Secretariat, the country pledged to devise and implement a low greenhouse gas emission development strategy to achieve net zero GHG emissions by 2050—a commitment that the then Prime Minister reiterated during the Climate Ambition Summit. That was a big pledge from a country with a negligible carbon footprint, grappling nonetheless with disproportionate effects of climate change like receding snowline, glacial retreat, cloudburst, flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods. Thanks to the Russia-Ukraine war that came right after the Covid-19 pandemic, Nepal has been witnessing an upward swing in petroleum prices for months, driving consumer prices in a fossil fuel-ruined economy and adding to the miseries of the consumer with ever-dipping purchasing power amid a deepening economic crisis. The situation is such that the people have lost count of the times that the state-owned petroleum monopoly, Nepal Oil Corporation, has ‘adjusted’—read hiked—prices of the imports from India, based on the exporter’s price list, say, in the past six months. Nepal is neither producing oil nor making arrangements for cheaper imports, in the foreseeable future. Fuel prices are not going down anytime soon. Countries around the world are moving away from the oil-based economy. They are seeking greener alternatives. Against this backdrop, our government’s obsession with petroleum imports is beyond comprehension. This obsession got reflected also in the budget for the fiscal 2023/24, which has increased taxes on electric vehicles while lowering taxes on vehicles that run on fossil fuel. What’s more, after his recent visit to India, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal informed the Parliament that the two sides are gearing toward the construction of a cross-border pipeline from Siliguri to Charali (Jhapa) and the extension of the cross-border Motihari-Amlekhgunj pipeline up to Lothar of Chitwan. He also talked about an understanding to build more petroleum pipelines within the country. In the same breath, the PM talked about lofty plans to export 10,000 MW of hydroelectricity to India within a decade. A country with good hydropower potential planning to export almost all of the green energy and continuing with the import of the dirty fuel—petroleum products—does not make sense. Increased consumption of oil is sure to widen Nepal’s trade deficit with India that currently stands at a whopping Rs 504.74 billion. The petroleum addiction will worsen air pollution in the country, thereby affecting public health as well as environmental well-being in one of the most climate vulnerable countries and taking a huge toll on its economy. So, the government should decrease petroleum consumption and promote the use of hydroelectricity through policy intervention. If it fails to do so, it will be no wonder if these pipelines become some sort of albatross around Nepal’s neck. Let better sense prevail before it’s too late.