The recent Bali Summit on Global Climate  Change in the first week of  January 2008  was  an eye awakener for Nepal since it was also one of the ecological countries in focus.  Much  was destroyed  in the Nepalese  environment as a result of the 10 year old  civil conflict which ended only in 2006.  However, there have been a host of  international non-governmental, UN, and other international organizations that have been working toward reducing the environment damage.  Nepal has also been a close adherent of  the  UNFCCC’s  various tenets that  in principle guide a  country towards safe environmental safeguards.  
 
In the post-Bali period, one of the encouraging aspects of  Nepali environmental development has been the   first payment of $514,786 from the World Bank recently for Nepal’s role in reducing emission of greenhouse gases. The Alternative  Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) a government initiative to promote clean energy was the recipient of the award.  Part of the agenda at the Bali Summit was also the protection of  wildlife species, and in the past two years, with rife poaching on the rise,  there is serious threat now to the Himalayan ecology.  However this is not covered  by CDMs.

 While the AEPC had  signed  an agreement with the  World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund(CDM) specifically for the biogas support program (Activity 1 of the project),  the amount that has been received was  solely for this component’s success. The amount which can work wonders for Nepali environmental education  must  now be rechanneled to push  biogas and alternate energy  consumption projects  in Nepal at a larger scale.  For instance,  wind power which the Netherlands government had once  launched with much gusto has somehow been relegated to the  SNV backburner in Kathmandu, though the bio-gas project is now a regional one. UNEP Regional office in Bangkok headed by a dashing young Nepali, Surendra Man Shrestha, is known  to have thought of some bold  post-Bali initiatives for countries such as Nepal, Fiji and Maldives,  and UNDP usually incorporates environmental safeguards in most of  its Nepal components, but we need to be enlightened more on  their positive outcome and what these program components are and how well they suit the coming timeframe. Personally, I believe the World Bank’s good initiatives can  get more newsworthy mileage if it too regularly launches a media partnership with the print and audio-visual  channels in Nepal to enlighten the Nepali public on important project accomplishments under CDM.         

The  Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement that Nepal signed must be considered noteworthy  since  Nepal’s AEPC  will get  annually $7 for reduction of  every ton of  carbon emission.  Dr. Govind Raj Pokhrel  as the Executive Director of  AEPC has been doing a splendid  job, and is considered very hard working and an innovative mind, but  he too needs to expand the program with joint media collaboration, particularly those that  have taken an active pro-environmental stance in the past years and supporting the position on balanced global greenhouse reduction taking Nepal as  an enviro-centric model.  I would suggest to Pokhrel to also advertise routinely about such programs in the Nepali media and on-line, so that the younger generation of Nepali globally can get more involved in gauging the overall environmental effects of the post-Bali agreement in relation to their own country and the issue of CDM monetary returns. Maybe  some of  the schools in Nepal could be actively involved in the near future. Young children are environmentally conscious and need to be promoted as our CDM  ambassadors in future.  Nepal for instance  has 9,708  bio gas plants that  are getting ever more popular plus nearly 2500 wind mills more than half of which are still functioning well.  As a result, it has helped reduce  93,901 tons of  carbon emission.   Nepal must further continue promoting  environmentally conscious projects that favor the Kyoto Protocol’s moderate achievements  since some of the Nepal launched initiatives have been considered  exemplary in the global roster of successful World Bank initiatives. 

According to the agreement reached with the World Bank, AEPC was rewarded for projects that actually were already being conducted between August 2004 and July 2006. World Bank’s Nepal  Country Director, Susan Goldmark has already made her active contribution and presence known in the past few months she has been posted in Kathmandu, by  wholeheartedly supporting if not re-tailoring  crucial projects related to HIV/AIDS,  environmental protection and further promotion of  public-private partnerships.  There are many more projects that could be rewarded under the CDM scheme, many could in fact be existing at the private entrepreneurship level without government knowing about it.  It is therefore important that  proper  registration of  these great visionary Nepali efforts be recognized  as  Goldmark remarked in handing over the World Bank cheque to Nepal.   It might be noteworthy that Nepal does not have much industrial production and so meets the IFCC’s  environmental caps in 2008, which were  further reinforced at Kyoto, but that might not hold true in the future.  The increased aviation market lurch to use Nepali open skies  and  cutting down of  trees for  fuel wood  by 46% of the Nepali families that still live below the poverty line, pose a serious  environmental problem to the Himalayan ecology.

It  should also be considered encouraging  if  Nepal  received payments for other similar projects which were run three or four years back when King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation was very active in the field of  nature conservation,  and are awaiting registration under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).   The World Bank and UNEP are also  active in revising  their environmental partnerships to encompass the true environmental actors in Nepal than rhetorical soothsayers,

Additionally it is worthy noting that the USAID Regional Environmental Office located in Kathmandu has been  doing a splendid job helping Nepal. USAID’s environmental staff  have worked closely with the Nepal government for the past five decades on  important conservation and  environmental protection  issues. The US was, in  fact, the only  country besides Sir Edmund Hillary,  that  championed that the 8000 Himalayan peaks of  Nepal be declared  a global treasure house.  America is also a pioneer in eco and adventure tourism whose benefits are yet to reflect fully in the 56 year old close partnership between the American and Nepali governments but might benefit in the CDM scheme in future.   As USAID- REO  website states,” Environmental problems do not respect national boundaries and thus will require trans-boundary solutions.  In South Asia, these solutions will most likely be found in policies that promote sustainable economic development, environmentally sensitive urban planning, water initiatives that share benefits equitably, recycling of waste products, community-based natural resource management, and biodiversity and wildlife conservation.  Key to progress will be capacity building, scientific research, technological development, education, and enhancing the role of civil society”.

One should note that delegates at the UN's climate change summit in Bali worried about the Nepali  types of depletion as well than just the exchange of carbon emissions and allocating country points.  It was felt in the conference’s sideline discussions that it was high time Nepal’s environmental experts and conscious international development organizations such as USAID and World Wildlife Fund work together in active partnership with UNEP and the Inter Governmental Panel on  Climate Change to accelerate stepped up funding and coordination efforts. Nepal has already lost some of its best environmental advocates and experts in the unfortunate helicopter accident at Ghumsa, Taplejung in 2006. 

The Bali meeting focused on four main issues that matter a lot to Nepal. These related to  global climate change and its impact mitigation, adaptation, financing and technology adoption.  All four  of the Bali outcomes are being studied intently by the World Bank in its Nepal environmental adoption programs  with other important  actors such as USAID-REO and UNEP also actively assisting in conference networking and pulling up cost  build-up resources to sustain programs in the past few years.   Nepal as a developing country might have earned its first historic credit point under the Clean Development Mechanism (CMD) recently,  but Nepali post-Kyoto lobbyists should not rest here:  the current targets are only for reaching; what we really need at the national level is a more stringent environmental protocol governing the entire  Hindu-Kush extendible Himalayan Belt.

(Surya B. Prasai  is a regional contributor to Nepal Horizons from Maryland  as well as writes as for the American Chronicle National Media Network, Los Angeles besides contributing as  Google Global News Resource Expert on international affairs, development, HIV/AIDS impact mitigation, US and Asia-Pacific  immigration, gender and  global climate change ).

(Note from the Nepal Horizons Editorial Team: The views and opinion expressed in this article are that of the author and not of NHC. We request individuals with interest in Nepal to submit their views on contemporary Nepalese issues to the following e-mail address: editor@nepalhorizons.com.  Pictures of contributors or images that relate to submissions are welcome)