CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT Climate change is a phenomenon due to emissions of greenhouse gases from fuel combustion,

deforestation, urbanization and industrialization resulting variations in solar energy, temperature and precipitation. Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) are responsible for most of the climate change currently being observed. It is a real threat to the lives in the world that largely affects water resources, agriculture, coastal regions, freshwater habitats, vegetation and forests, snow cover and melting and geological processes such as landslide, desertification and floods, and has long-term effects on food security as well as in human health. Exponential growth of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is causing climate change. It affects agriculture, forestry, human health, biodiversity, snow cover and aquatic to mountain ecosystems. Changes in climatic factors like temperature, solar radiation and precipitation have potentials to influence crop production. There is a general agreement that Climate Change impacting Nepal rather disproportionately compared to its size and its own meager contribution of the green house gases. However, given its location between two rapidly growing economies of India and China, Nepal cannot escape the rapidly increasing influence of climate and global changes. The rapidly retreating glaciers (average retreat of more than 30 m/year), rapid rise in temperature (>0.06OC), erratic rainfalls and increase in frequency of extreme events such as floods and drought like situation are some of the effects Nepal is facing during the last few years. Most of the big rivers of Nepal are glacierfed and its main resources of water and hydroelectricity will be seriously affected due to the ongoing changes in glacier reserves, snowfall and natural hazards. Nepal has to prepare itself to try and mitigate these effects if possible and if not adapt to them to reduce their impacts on our lives and livelihoods. Nepal is largely a mountainous country and current indications are that the mountain regions are more vulnerable due to increased warming trends as well as extreme changes in altitude over small distances. These alarming trends not only make Nepals major sectors of economy such as agriculture, tourism and energy more vulnerable but also endanger the health, safety and wellbeing of Nepali people. Biodiversity - the other important resources of Nepal is also being affected as invasive species will spread fast and useful medicinal, food and nutrition related plants may disappear. Climate change is becoming already dangerous to our survival and we have to do everything possible to prevent it being catastrophic to us. The globally accepted strategy to contain disastrous climate change impacts is Adaptation and Mitigation. For a least developed country such as Nepal, adaptation should be the priority. Nepal is currently preparing National Action Plan on Adaptation (NAPA) which should be made as comprehensive and topical as possible. Well coordinated, quick and serious implementation of NAPA will be extremely important to mitigate and adapt to the growing impacts of climate change in Nepal. Nepals central location in the Himalaya portends the fact that it is the prime target country of climate change impacts and calls for it to play a leadership role at least in showing political will and playing a responsible role in global events such as the COP-15 at Copenhagen.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT Climate change is fast becoming a major issue of concern to both Nepal and Nepalese people. If the average annual temperatures increases as per the current annual rate of 0.06 OC all aspects of our life and livelihood will be affected. Climate change is already threatening Nepals food security, human habitats, water resources and tourism sectors seriously. Nepal and the entire greater Himalaya region will be facing multiple challenges due to climate change. Mountain landscape including our Himalayan glaciers the central part of the water towers of South Asia agriculture, health, forests and pastures are already showing indications of climate change impacts. If we add increasing fuel and food crisis to the climate change related problems, Nepals national agenda such as poverty reduction, water management, and human safety and security will face unimaginable challenges and Nepal will further get exposed to increasing natural and human made disasters. The mountain regions are more vulnerable because it has been seen that both the warming trends as well as the impacts are magnified due to the extreme changes in altitude over small distances. Majority of Nepalese peoples source of livelihood is agriculture which relies strongly on the monsoon systems and indications are strong that the monsoon pattern especially rainfall timing, frequency, duration and intensity all may be altered due to climate change. Traditionally, people have been adapting to small changes in weather patterns and climatic variations but as these changes intensify peoples' ability to adapt will be challenged and they simply may resort to coping. Analysis and predictions of climate change in Nepal are still based on literature review and some scattered information. There is still no plan in place to collect long-term high quality data to carry out reliable analysis and predictions. The topography is also very challenging in case of Nepal; the extreme changes in height over short distances (from about 65 meter to 8848 m within 120 km span) can lead to extreme changes in rainfall amounts and other climate-related events over a small area. This extreme topography presents a challenge both for measuring actual rainfall and for assessing other climate factors, especially as weather monitoring stations are few and far between. Similarly, it is still difficult to develop models that take into account the influence of the local topography on the climate. Some researchers are projecting that all areas of South Asia will warm by at least 1C by the end of the century; in the Punjab area, a large part of Afghanistan, Badakshan, the western Nepal Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh, and the northern Tibetan Plateau, warming could be as high as 3.5-4C. The rate of warming is likely to increase with increasing altitude, at least in Bhutan, Nepal, and Himachal Pradesh. Climate change is real and underway, so there is a need of impact identification and adoption to cope with vulnerabilities in agricultural sector. Nepal being a least developed country, it is moving towards vulnerable situation due to climate change. As it is known, its effects cannot be completely controlled but effective planning and change in human habit towards a low carbon economy can slower down possible disasters. Enriched CO2 has shown positive impact on yield of major crops in all geographical zones. However, some research findings from other countries showed reduction in grain and food quality. Increase in temperature and CO2 levels is also
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CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT threatening to bring hidden-hunger problem in human by lowering essential nutrients contents in food crops. It is concluded that overall impact of climate change in agricultural sectors will have negative impacts in the long run. Global temperatures has rise by 0.60C in the last 130 years. This rise in global temperatures lead to huge impacts on a wide range of climate related factor. Levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide gases are rising, mainly as a result of human activities Carbon dioxide is being dumped in the atmosphere at an alarming rate. Since the industrial revolution, humans have been pumping out huge quantities of carbon dioxide, raising carbon dioxide concentrations by 30%. The burning of fossil fuels is partly responsible for this huge increase. U.S, China, Russia, Japan and India are the leading emitters of carbon dioxide. Global temperatures have risen by 0.50C over the 140 years, since records began. The decade 1990-2000 was the warmest for 300 years and 0.50c warmer than the mean 1961-1990 climate. In addition to the above improvements, it is imperative that the developed countries and the rapidly developing countries formulate strategies to curb green house gas emissions. Countries on the fast track of economic growth should also look at adopting new energy-saving technologies and planting of more trees. The emphasis should also be laid on increasing the use of renewable energy sources like solar and wind. It is high time for leading emitters of CO2 to formulate national programs to address climate change. Only then the effect of climate change on agriculture can be reduced. Developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because they have fewer resources to adapt: socially, technologically and financially. Climate change is anticipated to have far reaching effects on the sustainable development of developing countries including their ability to attain the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015 (UN 2007). Many developing countries governments have given adaptation action a high, even urgent, priority. Rising fossil fuel burning and land use changes have emitted, and are continuing to emit, increasing quantities of greenhouse gases into the Earths atmosphere. These greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrogen dioxide (N2O), and a rise in these gases has caused a rise in the amount of heat from the sun withheld in the Earths atmosphere, heat that would normally be radiated back into space. This increase in heat has led to the greenhouse effect, resulting in climate change. The main characteristics of climate change are increases in average global temperature (global warming); changes in cloud cover and precipitation particularly over land; melting of ice caps and glaciers and reduced snow cover; and increases in ocean temperatures and ocean acidity due to seawater absorbing heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Nepal has considered and identified renewable energy resources such as solar energy, biomass energy and wind energy as important response options to mitigate emissions of green hage

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT source of untapped alternative energies with very high potentials for uplifting Nepal's scoioeconomy. As far as Climate Change impact reduction is concerned, one of most desirable Mitigation options for Nepal will be the improvement in the supply or increase availability of low carbon fuels such as natural gas, as well as greater use of renewable energy sources and more efficient technologies for power generation. Forest resources in Nepal, as already mentioned, have been exploited beyond their sustainable ecological growth. Excessive dependency on forest to fulfill the needs of firewood, fodder, timber and habitat is the main cause for forest area depletion in Nepal. This should be stopped. Reduction in fuel wood use, use of its substitutes, and use of recycled or more efficient wood products along with improved stoves can appreciably minimize the national total fuel wood demands. Nepal should also focused on solid waste management which is leading to increase in methane emission (one of the principal greenhouse gas). Nepal is one among the many developing countries where reducing GHG emission is not a national development priority. It is however felt that the awareness about Climate Change issue is gaining ground in the public, and its importance is gradually being understood. It is realistic, therefore, to expect that the national policy will give due consideration to GHG emission issues in the future. Environment protection issues, albeit, are already gaining rapid acceptance in the policy level of Nepal though. But still environmental protection at present is viewed in a rather narrow sense and is limited to urban areas. In the Climate Change context, another policy matter serious enough to be focused on, relevant to GHG emission reduction, is development of hydropower in Nepal. The backbone of this policy is to harness the vast natural resource of the country, make the country self-sufficient in energy and get economic benefit of exporting the extra energy to other countries. This in return also implies large amounts of GHG emission reduction. Hydropower as a substitution to fossil fuels has zero GHG emission. REFERENCES 1. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2008/s05/en/ 2. http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/problems/rising_temperatures/hotspot_ma p/nepa.cfm 3. http://www.ianas.org/books/Climate_Chance.pdf 4. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/AEJ/article/download/721/741 5. http://jeebanpanthi.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/article.pdf 6. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/nepnc1.pdf