Impact of climate change on the ground

We often think of climate change in terms of floodings, landslides, erratic rain patterns and their immediate after-effects, the devastations that these phenomena are causing among local populations.

Less attention is given on longer term consequences of climate warming. A recent report, a joint initiative of UNESCAP, UNDP and ADB, is offering a very sober reminder of the impacts of changed climate patterns in the agricultural sector, showing how hard local communities in the Asia-Pacific are hit.

The 2024 ESCAP-ADB-UNDP SDG Partnership Report, titled “People and Planet: Addressing the Interlinked Challenges of Climate Change, Poverty”, is a detailed analysis on the causes and effects of climate change in the livelihoods of millions of people living in rural areas.

Linking climate with strengthened agriculture and sustainable food production and doing a much better job at the “integration of food systems and food security into disaster risk reduction”, are keys not only to enhance people’s adaptability to the changes forced on them by a warmer, more polluted planet.

It is also instrumental to overcome poverty and zero hunger, two foundational aspects of the Agenda 2030. As the name of the report suggests, the changes needed all come down to having partnerships and collaborations but it also about institutional collaborations and stronger forms of governance.

Recently, news circulated that an expert dialogue on “Mountain, People and Climate” will be held in Kathmandu from May 22 to 23.

Per the report, the initiative will be led by the Ministry of Forest and Environment with the focus on promoting new partnerships and collaborations.

It is also aimed, according to Maheshwor Dhakal, joint secretary at MoFE, at “allowing the governments, stakeholders in mountain countries, to better understand mountain climate concerns and solutions, share expertise and experiences, and enable synergies”.

This is what we need. The challenges are so huge and solutions are available but complex and require novel thinking. In short, a new approach is needed. The partnership report identifies areas of action like sustainable agricultural practices, grassroots entrepreneurship and nature-based solutions in creating jobs at local level.

In practice, it highlights how “critical (it) is to ensure that new employment generated from transitioning to a economy is green and decent, supporting a just transition and contributing to poverty and hunger alleviation”. Together with social protection schemes, effective as cushions but extremely expensive and difficult to design, the entire Asia-Pacific region has the expertise and capacities.

There are also plenty of best practices on how local villages proactively engage in climate adaptive solutions because, essentially, locals often hold the key to effective actions.

They might not be clamorous but they can make the difference as when farmers adopt more and better organic practices or when they embrace the opportunities of renewable sources of power. But each of these solutions face complex dynamics in their implementation.

On the one hand, it is also about financial resources and expertise and guidance. On the other, it is really about innovating in the way decisions are made. That’s why the expert dialogue next month is going to be paramount but, at the same time, it’s also important to set some expectations. 

First and foremost, it should not be just a “one-off” initiative.

The event instead should lead to a roadmap of more consultations and not only among experts. While it remains crucial to have dialogues among experts and on this aspect, such platforms should be linked with existing (at least on the paper) consultative mechanisms that the Federal Government has already established even if rarely activated in a substantial way.

For example, bodies like the Climate Change Council and Climate Change Coordination Committee must be not only re-activated but re-booted and re-designed as truly consultative bodies, institutions that take engaging and involving non state actors seriously. But even a much stronger coordination among civil servants and experts from the civil society and private sector won’t suffice. What is required is a level of discussions that not only trickle down to the grassroots.

Certainly, it would help to extend conversation on climate mitigation and adaptations to the local levels, extending the scope of debate. A brilliant research paper by Prakriti Resource Center, published in 2019, offers a four-pillar framework to localize climate action in Nepal.

Within this approach, the research identifies policy level coordination and coherence are paramount and underlines how traditional top-down measures are bottlenecks to localize climate mitigation and adaptation. The challenges are so daunting in Nepal and elsewhere in the region.

In the specific case of Nepal, local governments are neither consulted nor involved enough and this is a finding corroborated also by the work done by the researchers at the above-mentioned center. We really need a fresh re-start and seriously, think what and how localizing climate action can work and be effective.

Going beyond the jargon, moreover, when we talk about coordination, how should it unfold? How can we ensure that coordination does not only entail policy and legislation centered-discussions but rather coordination that, to start with, should involve and engage local people.

Not many fully understand that the Agenda 2030 and its SDGs offer a great opportunity at empowering citizens by enabling them to be part of the decision-making. Ensuring wide, open and transparent consultation across all the levels of the multi-governance system that Nepal is creating would be, in a sense, a first milestone toward real participation that is based on people being able to deliberate.

Deploying more sustainable agriculture practices, creating conditions for establishing resilient job markets in rural areas especially by having more women in economically productive roles and having better education and skills development systems, is not just a matter of expertise, policy and money.

It is also a matter of allowing people to be part of the conversation and possibly have a real, meaningful agency, a voice to decide. In a recent event organized by the Institute for Strategic and Socio-Economic Research on April 16, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal spoke of the centrality of good governance.

“Engaging citizens in decision making fosters transparency and accountability, which are essential pillars of good governance” he said. “It is crucial to adapt governance mechanisms to mitigate environmental risks” the PM added. He talked about government’s efforts to include and involve people.

According to the Partnership 2024 Report, one of the key enablers for successfully winning the challenges of climate warming in the rural areas of the whole Asia-Pacific, harnessing the power of local agricultural practices and ensuring food security across the board is “institutional capacity building”.

It is explained as “developing the capacity of institutions for climate-risk assessment and governance is vital for effective public decision-making at all levels”. “Effective policymaking requires coordination across different levels of government and must include all relevant stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society organizations, financial institutions and international organizations”, the report elaborates.

The publication also emphasizes how an ADB project, the Community Resilience Partnership Program (CRPP), is trying to “increase the participation of women in decision-making processes which in turn leads to more effective and inclusive resilience strategies”. But how viable on the long term such kind of financial support is going to be? What about local ownership? A proposal: Can we, finally, let the people decide what all these jargons mean in practice in the fight against climate warming?

Can Nepal truly empower its citizens in a bottom-up form of federalism that is truly inclusive and transformative? Moreover, it is really high time that PM Dahal started backing up his visionary rhetoric with real ground-breaking governance actions. Perhaps a policy and experts dialogue to be held next month in Kathmandu could start paving the way for these answers to be addressed by those who should really be in charge, the citizens.