Meeting our commitments

New view towers, built to encourage tourism, don’t fit into the economic worries of the hills.

The countdown for Nepal to complete climate mitigation projects, committed to the enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), by 2030 has started, with a year having passed without much effort dispensed. The five key energy, agriculture, forestry, industry and waste management projects are identified as conditional mitigation projects estimated to cost about $25 billion —money that we need to access from international sources. An inability to access this amount, perhaps the biggest undertaking we’ve ever attempted, will hamper our national commitment to contributing to global efforts in limiting global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius. Climate projects, after all, are nothing but development projects designed to achieve focused goals of emission reduction and adaptation, which often require new technology, increased capacity, or even different ways of conducting business. Unfortunately, our bungled understanding of national development needs over the years sets uncomfortable precedence for how we may not be prepared for this most important enterprise.