On December 06, 2023, the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Forests and Environment, organized a panel discussion session at the COP28 climate summit held in Dubai, UAE. The session titled “Building Blocks of Climate Ambition: People, Nature & Action”, kept focus on making known efforts to promote nature-based locally driven solutions to combat the growing climate crisis in Nepal. During the discussion climate change impacts on the Himalayan environment, local mitigation and adaptation strategies and actions, including increasingly disproportionate risk-to-resilience levels among its population, were discussed.
Participants at the panel discussion included the Minister for Forests and Environment the Hon. Dr. Birendra Prasad Mahato as chief guest, NTNC Member Secretary Mr. Sharad Chandra Adhikari as session chair, along with five panelists, Dr. Popular Gentle, Development Management Expert to the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Nepal, Dr. Deepak Kumar Kharal, Secretary of the Ministry of Forests and Environment of Nepal, Dr. Roj Nath Pande, Secretary of the Federal Parliament Secretariat of Nepal, Dr. Bapon Fakhruddin, Water and Climate Leader of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and Ms. Claudia Godfrey Ruíz, Committee Chair of the CPDAE-GCF/Adaptation Fund. The panel session was moderated by Dr. Manish Raj Pandey, Head of the Department of Climate Change and Knowledge Management at NTNC. In the audience there were more than fifty participants from a variety of representations.
The forum exchanged diverse insights and positions on the science, stakeholders and synergies involved to combat the climate crisis in Nepal’s mountains, climate-related impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services incurred, glacial melt, snow loss and micro climate scenarios, disaster risks and preparedness levels, agriculture and infrastructure development initiatives and challenges, green-based livelihoods and nature-based tourism opportunities, and limitations due to inadequate climate finance and technical capacity at the local level.
Before the panel discussion, a short documentary bringing out voices and climate perspectives of mountain communities was featured. Domestic efforts to empower nature-based locally driven actions from the frontlines was appreciated by the audience, with calls for stronger commitment and response from the international community.
Earlier during the COP28 proceedings, on December 02, a roundtable themed "Call of the mountains: who saves us from the climate crisis?" was hosted by the Prime Minister of Nepal, the Rt. Hon’ble Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’. The roundtable, aimed at building greater climate accountability and climate finance commitments from industrialized countries and leaders, was attended by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Prime Minister of Andorra Xavier Espot Zamora, and Kyrgyzstan Foreign Affairs Minister Jeenbek Kulubayev, among other high-level delegates.
Being among the most climate vulnerable countries, as well as home to the highest Himalayas, there is growing consensus that Nepal’s role in driving the sustainable mountain agenda will be critical in the future global climate response. For this, as the panel session stressed, commitments and investments beyond Nepal’s domestic actions must materialize at the global front as well. It means leaders of the developed world must agree and ensure existing climate finance gaps and access issues are resolved urgently for protecting and promoting nature at scale.
