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Ace Institute of Management

Climate change the path ahead


Seminars in Contemporary Management Issues

Submitted By: Umesh Agrawal Submitted To: Mr. Binod Bhattarai and Mr. Pradeep Rajopadhyay Ace Institute of Management, Kathmandu 8/22/2013

Climate change the path ahead

The affect of climate change has been evident in Nepal with the changing pattern of monsoon, erratic rainfall followed by floods, increased number of disasters has huge implications, mainly on the marginalized communities and more so on women and children. This puts Nepal in a dilemma of not being able to feed its own people with reduction in agricultural output, increased investment in social infrastructure viz water supply and irrigation. With the local communities already putting their effort, the state has its work cut out to design and implement effective adaption strategies to cope with the climate change to reduce the impact on economic and social development, one of the key priorities of the development plans. Climate change, in not just a science that we need to learn, but has been an integral part of our lives, since our birth and will last further. The changing temperature around has been your alibi to persuade you about this fact. It holds high importance as it contributes to disasters and exacerbates its impacts. The news has approved it starting from the GLOF in humla, flood in various parts of Nepal and the erratic rainfall in the past couple of years. These all events have been a proof about climate change if not just land use change impact, deforestation and desertification. Lack of our sensitivity towards the changing landscape and encroachment on the natural habitat has led to blame ourselves and our need to burn fossil fuel. The romanticism about fossil fuel needs to recede else will be held responsible for all our future problems if we do not act now to stop this nuisance. The most general definition in Wikipedia, of climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time, regardless of cause1. Nepal needs no George Bush to negate the impact of climate change and its consequences. The current disasters of today viz. drought, forest fires, flooding, landslides etc could only be attributed and magnified by climate change. Nepals Climatic condition diversifies within a small spatial range, where the monsoon systems relative to the timing, volume and landscape are not well understood and the geospatial variation and precipitation dynamics is barely explained. Lack of data has handicapped the analyst further. Climate change is a process observed over a time span, it is the local people who identify climate variation more. Similarly the peasants working in their fields for quite some time would experience facts such as erratic rainfall some resulting in floods, receding surface and well waters, drying of springs, declining crop yields and livestock production, change in temperature levels, change in plantation timings etc. Floods, an annually increasing phenomenon mainly in the Terai, have heavy tolls on settlements by taken lives,
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change Page 2

Submitted by Umesh Agrawal

Climate change the path ahead

destroying physical assets, displacing people and inundating agricultural fields and depositing sediments leaving the farmers high and dry. On the contrary droughts affect both winter and summer crops. The reduction in the stream water discharge, more intense and erratic precipitation levels, flash floods, flooding etc have left the local communities to contemplate about the reasons and how to cope with these changes and thereby affecting the subsistence farming economy and ultimately the reduction in food production looms a threat of food security for the citizens at large. Agriculture contributes about 40% to GDP and provides employment to two-thirds of the population and is mainly rain fed. An average size of ownership of agricultural land in Nepal is 0.85 ha per household, but majority (45%) owns less than 0.5 ha. With a cultivated area of 2,642,000 ha (18% of its land area), of which two third (1,766,000 ha) is potentially irrigable, only 42% of the cultivated area has irrigation of some sort and 17% of cultivated area has year round irrigation2 which primarily depends on local surface sources and also most likely to be affected by erratic rainfall. This puts agriculture sector as one the most vulnerable sectors at risk for climate change having major implications and impacts such as water shortages, ability to produce food for its population and overall impacts on the livelihood of the people. The agricultural product of Nepal already not able to cater to the existing demand, it seems that with the given changes and lack of appropriate measures taken, Nepal will be food deficient even at normal harvest in near future. The most basic use of water, for consumption is also at risk. With almost 50% population living in urban areas, the need for potable water will be in high demand, equal to the rural contingent. This sector is reliant heavily on surface and ground water. With the change in the climate the water sources are being impacted. The receding surface water, drying wells and springs etc has huge impacts on both urban and rural population of Nepal. Such case of water supply being impacted by the above reasons are numerous and increasing, more so in recent years. A recent study of the 29 towns where water supply system were established under the Small Town Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB), marked that around 50 to 60 % of the water sources have dried up which were considered to be good enough for the whole design period. This has left people with less water to ponder with and to look for alternatives such as lift water supply from sources which were not considered feasible before, due to high initial investments, and alternative sources. This has implications

Water Resources of Nepal in the Context of Climate Change 2011, Published by: Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) Submitted by Umesh Agrawal Page 3

Climate change the path ahead

on local economic development. All these call for effective strategies to adapt and cope with the changing needs. Research in the sector of climate change has helped to understand adaptation better. Adaptation is about adjusting. Ecologically, socially and economically in response to the expected climatic changes, its effect and impact and it is valued more than coping. Climate change expert, Ajaya Dixit writes In welladapted systems, people actually "do well" despite changing conditions, including those attributable to climate change. They thrive either because they shift strategies or because the underlying systems on which their livelihoods are based are sufficiently resilient and flexible to absorb the impact of those changes3. People, in their effort to reduce the vulnerability to impacts of disasters, need to be resilient and improve their adaptive capacity. This could be done by sharing experience among affected communities, nongovernment organizations and local government officials, researchers etc. the infrastructure system should also be flexible enough to address the changing demand, apart from being resilient to disasters. The factors contributing to effective adaptation could be; effective communication and accessibility of information about the hazards and conditions leading to it, risk covering financing system, economic diversification and livelihood options, awareness raising education, flexible and resilient infrastructure system, voice raising and knowledge sharing and preparing preventive, mitigation, response, recovery and preparedness strategies and plan. The ability to reduce vulnerability to disasters is relative to the effectiveness of the system of preparedness. Hence Climate change has an impact on the country economy but we need to keep advising techniques to be resilient enough to adapt and cope with this unwanted burden. Climate change has made us tenacious to face and cope with the disasters and keep the countrys development in track , else the cost would be unbearable. This also calls for a major shift in our lifestyle, a transformation on how we manage land and forests and a new paradigm shift to act differently than the past. Act now, act together and act differently-that are the steps that can put a climate smart world within our reach. References

1. Class lecture of Mr. Ajaya Dixit 2. Water Resources of Nepal in the Context of Climate Change 2011, Published by: Water and
Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS), www.wecs.gov.np
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http://www.worldresourcesreport.org/responses/climate-change-nepal-impacts-and-adaptive-strategies Page 4

Submitted by Umesh Agrawal

Climate change the path ahead

Submitted by Umesh Agrawal

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Climate change the path ahead

People of Bangladesh, in their effort to reduce the vulnerability to impacts of disasters, need to be resilient and improve their adaptive capacity. This could be done by sharing experience among affected communities, non-government organizations and local government officials, researchers etc. the infrastructure system should also be flexible enough to address the changing demand, apart from being resilient to disasters. The factors contributing to effective adaptation could be; effective communication and accessibility of information about the hazards and conditions leading to it, risk covering financing system, economic diversification and livelihood options, awareness raising education, flexible and resilient infrastructure system, voice raising and knowledge sharing and preparing preventive, mitigation, response, recovery and preparedness strategies and plan. The ability to reduce vulnerability to disasters is relative to the effectiveness of the system of preparedness. Hence Climate change has an impact on the country economy but they need to keep advising techniques to be resilient enough to adapt and cope with this unwanted burden. This also calls for a major shift in lifestyle, a transformation on how to manage land and forests and a new paradigm shift to act differently than the past. Act now, act together and act differently-that are the steps that can put a climate smart world within our reach.

Submitted by Umesh Agrawal

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