Stakeholders urge broader cooperation to tackle climate crisis

KATHMANDU: Stakeholders concerned have stressed the need of a wider cooperation to minimise climate change crisis.

Airing their views in a second day-session held under the two-day National Seminar organised in Kathmandu on the occasion of the International Mountain Day, the representatives from various stakeholders concerned echoed the need of combined efforts to reduce climate change crisis and cope with it.

Chief of Climate Change Management Division, Ministry of Forests and Environment, Dr Sindhu Prasad Dhungana, said, “Mountain regions are experiencing the increased risk of climate change. Snow is melting and the risk of outburst of glacial lakes and of avalanche has heightened. It is necessary to invest for enhancing the capacity of province and local levels to cope with the issues of climate crisis.”

As he said, effective research works are needed to address consequences of climate change, the third Nationally Determined Contributions will be more ambitious and it is warranted to increase the country’s access to international climate finance for securing investment to implement the NDC.

Climate change expert Raju Pundit Chhetri shared about the lack of climate finance to respond climate crisis, advising the central, province and local governments to focus on formulating climate change-friendly budget.

“The international climate funds are also not sufficient to address the problems, but it is necessary to increase our access to such funds,” he said. With an exit of Nepal from the group of Least Developed Countries after 2026, it may lose international facilities it has been getting as the LDC and in this context, it is necessary to enhance our internal capacity to address the crisis, according to him.

Another climate change expert Dr Bimal Regmi called for increasing investment in pre disaster preparedness and pre-information system to respond the climate crisis.