Resources

Summary

This study is an academic term paper prepared by Mr. Regan Sapkota, a M. Sc. Environmental Science student that intends to study the impacts of climate change that Nepal might face in future.

Climate change may be caused by both natural and anthropogenic forcing, but at present time unsustainable anthropogenic activities and enormous greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are causing erratic climate change. The Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.5°F over the past century, and is projected to rise another 0.5°F to 8.6°F over the next hundred years. Nepal is one of the least developed country in the world and was ranked as the 4th most vulnerable country due to the impacts of climate change by Maplecroft in 2010, but, in contrary, it is one of the least contributor to global GHGs emissions, emitting 0.027% of global total. Lack of adequate fund for adaptation makes Nepal and its people very vulnerable to climate change. This study is intended to study the impacts of climate change that Nepal might face in future. The study was generally based on the secondary data like journal papers, reports and others. Nepal lies in Hindukush Himalaya region and IPCC 4th Assessment report suggests region as a “white spot” due to the lack of adequate research. Even though compressing limited number of research, climate change is supposed to cause enormous negative impacts in this region and Nepal. It was found that the temperature of Nepal is warming at the rate faster than that of the global average. Review of many papers shows that vulnerability of Nepal may be alleviated by the fact of country’s fragile ecosystem, uneven topography, high dependency on agriculture, hydroelectricity and low GPD. It was seen that climate impacts many key sectors of Nepal like agriculture, hydroelectricity, food security, tourism and many others. Climate change is expected to cause many other climate induced hazard like flood, drought, landslides. Thus, these impact will directly impacts the economy of the country and hence the livelihood of the people.