That the monsoon this year could be affected by El Nino, the warming of the western Pacific Ocean waters affecting weather patterns worldwide, was known well beforehand. Many countries, therefore, have braced up in whatever way
they can.
Farmers in Indonesia now have a calendar for early planting dates. Their government is also helping them with techniques and equipment to plant certain crops sooner. In Malaysia, underground and recycled water is being encouraged for use so that the deficit the drought might cause can be dealt with. You may have floods as an immediate image for the Philippines but because of a possible drought due to El Nino’s effects, the Philippine government has even begun cloud seeding and has given farmers drought tolerant varieties of rice. In Thailand, similar efforts are afoot.
Bad monsoon
Nepal’s immediate neighbour, India, too has embarked on a multi-pronged strategy: the Indian government is preparing to release more rice and wheat from its stocks to keep prices from going through the roof. New Delhi will also provide seed varieties that can cope with dry conditions and fund state governments if need be.
So, the question now is: what has the government in Nepal done? As of this writing, the South Asian monsoon was not normal. The Indian Meteorological Department showed that Indian states bordering Nepal were not receiving adequate rainfall. West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in India had seen scattered rain or remained mostly dry. Monsoonal showers in June were the weakest in India’s in its past one-century record.
It is, however, too early to say that the monsoon is weak. The region might be lashed by rains and may even be flooded in the coming monsoon months. But what we are talking about here is taking precautions before a below-average rainfall fails farmers. After all, agriculture is still the mainstay of the Nepali economy.
And yet, Nepali farmers have not received any caution or advice from authorities; forget about aid like drought-resistant seeds or technology to cope with dry conditions. Like many other sectors, this, too, is where governance is sorely missing.
Climate changes
But, this is not just about the government in Singha Durbar. Being climate resilient is now a global agenda being persistently pushed by the donor community. Millions of dollars are pouring in to “help climatically vulnerable communities to adapt to such weather anomalies.” This is not to suggest that the forecasted below-average monsoon rainfall this time is climate change the El Nino phenomenon happens regardless and its effects are felt worldwide at varying intervals. But this also does not mean that the money that comes in for climate adaptation should be spent only when there is a global consensus on which weather event is the result of climate change and which is not.
The debate will go on. And so will the series of events of weird weather patterns. Scientists have said that under the changing climate, events like El Nino or its reverse, La Nina, will happen more often. The latest report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change said that oceans are becoming more acidic because of a rapid increase in the amount of carbon dioxide gas they suck in from the atmosphere. The carbon concentration in the atmosphere has now reached 400 parts per million, which is already a dangerous level. If it goes further up, scientists say, the world will become more than two degrees warmer from what it was before the industrial period and that could lead to runaway climate change.
So, while the world goes nowhere when it comes to cutting carbon emissions and the weather continues to become more and more strange, how to assist vulnerable communities cope with these changes becomes the key question. Issuing timely warnings and providing whatever possible help to them during an El Nino year like this could be a good rehearsal.
Good initiatives
There have been some success stories during floods. Last year, for instance, huge flood-induced loss of lives and property was avoided in the Karnali basin because of the effective use of mobile phone devices for timely alerts. If that idea is replicated in other river basins as well, damages from floods can be minimised significantly. To do all this at the national level, adaptation plans will have to be made and implemented genuinely.
There is no dearth of documents on the planning shelves of the government ministries. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nepal has already prepared the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA), followed by the Local Adaptation Program of Action (LAPA), and now, the National Adaptation Plans. Add to that other donor programmes like the pilot project on climate resilience.
From the pages of these voluminous documents, plans and programmes must reach vulnerable communities. If not with cash and technology, they can at least be helped with knowledge and timely warning. The good news is, Nepal has a strong community radio presence and that can be very effective for information
dissemination.
But has this asset been recognised by all those high-sounding adaptation plans and programmes? If it had, farmers this year would have already had a calendar for different planting dates.
Khadka is a BBC journalist based in London
2 The government’s recently announced policies and programmes affirmed the need for waste-to-energy projects in Nepal, especially as Nepal is spending nearly 25 percent of its GDP on petroleum imports. Generating energy from waste is not a new concept here, as Nepal has pioneered its own biogas digester technology, which utilises cow dung to produce cooking gas, and is installed in more than 300,000 rural households. This compares to an installed capacity of 550 megawatts and emission reduction of nearly 1 million tonnes of carbon equivalent each year.
Waste-to-energy is a modern phenomenon, with waste related to growth in the economy and thus to be treated as a renewable resource whereby increasing waste continues to generate additional energy. Such modern waste-to-energy projects are in operation in India and China, where these projects are subsidised up front to match the investment cost and/or provided extra incentives on the tariff by the utility to meet renewable energy obligations. In this context, it becomes critical to analyse the socio-economic and environmental implications of generating waste and the economic benefits of taxing and/or incentivising waste generation within that political, environmental and socio-economic framework.
Waste management practices
In Nepal, the existing Solid Waste Management Act 2011 requires waste to be managed under the 3R principle of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Despite the Act, the state of the rivers and roads in and around urban centres, including the Kathmandu Valley, clearly depict the scenario of waste management. Largely, waste collection systems in municipalities and urban centres have tried to integrate traditional informal waste collection practices with formal and (un)scientific systems, due to socio political reasons. This has not led to the optimum utilisation of resources and revenues for proper waste management.
The national average solid waste generation is almost 1,630 tonnes per day. Kathmandu generates the highest per capita waste at 0.39 kg/person/day, producing a total daily waste of 300 tonnes per day. The waste from Kathmandu Valley alone can generate nearly 5 megawatts of energy. The total waste from the 58 municipalities could add nearly 30 megawatts to the energy grid in Nepal, not even considering the recently added 41 municipalities.
What Nepal needs
Many sugar mills are currently generating electricity from their industrial waste, primarily to meet energy demands during loadshedding hours as otherwise, the use of diesel would increase the energy cost by threefold. Besides, this also helps fulfil local environmental regulations. This is also evident with many hotels, schools and security barracks that are replacing fuel wood and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) with adapted versions of local household biogas
technology.
The private sector is genuinely interested in investing in waste-to-energy projects but this sub-sector has seen very slow progress due to three factors. First, clear policy provisions inclusion in the national yearly planning strategy is a welcome initiative but it needs to be reflected as part of the renewable energy portfolio in upcoming reviews and papers, research and policies and longer term plans and reforms. Second, the lack of an attempt to introduce and transfer suitable technology and business options/models through pilots and third, a lack of outreach and promotion activities and customised support services for developers, municipalities and waste management entities.
Pushing ahead
Against a traditional large hydro project, waste-to-energy projects are easy to establish, often around urban centres to the extent that is environmentally possible and therefore, are less time consuming and less costly. The foremost necessity is to strengthen the capacity of local bodies and municipalities to understand the social, financial and environmental parameters of waste as a means for energy generation and thus, facilitate the implementation of such projects through the enhancement of beneficiaries’ participation.
Public-private partnership offers opportunities for operational efficiency and cost effectiveness. The role of the private sector will be more important for complex tasks associated with the operation of projects, as municipalities are less experienced in the areas of management and problem solving. The government should subsidise initial pilot projects for the costs to be recovered, albeit partially and to assure better services and quality as the public is generally willing to pay if the level of services is improved, especially for waste collection and electricity tariff. The current mediocre state of in hydro power should not be allowed to continue in the other areas of energy infrastructure development and waste-to-energy projects should be implemented in all its potential to improve energy security and fulfil the country’s wider development objectives.
Thapa is Assistant Director of the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
4 News of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s imminent visit to Nepal is being awaited with a great sense of excitement and anticipation. There are several reasons for this visit to be significant. First, it is important from the emotional standpoint. After years of neglect, a big and emerging economic superpower, and our closest next-door neighbour, cares enough to visit Nepal, which in the throes of a political transition. Among others, the visit serves to uphold the principle of reciprocity normally practiced by countries, as it also marks the end of the agonisingly one-sided trend of high-level visits to India from Nepal.
Principle of reciprocity
The exchange of visits at the highest political level is an important tool for constructive engagement and also for the enhancement of bilateral relations between neighbours and the international community. Such visits are helpful in restoring or maintaining respectability in bilateral relations. If well choreographed and appropriately conducted, there is much to gain. At a personal level, closeness, understanding and mutual admiration may develop between the guest and the host. Important bilateral issues bogged-down at the bureaucratic levels because of lingering misperceptions and misunderstanding can often find a quick way out, thereby providing a new lease on life to existing relations.
Of course, in the conduct of foreign policy, the term 'reciprocity' is often seen as being dictated by power. Weaker and less powerful countries can expect, but are not in a position to claim, reciprocity in relations from their big and powerful friends and neighbours. This also applies to high-level visits, as they too are part of the exercise of international relations. For powerful countries, the need to observe reciprocity is driven primarily by strategic and other national interest imperatives. Nonetheless, it becomes almost insufferable when such visits happen to be out-and-out one-way traffic and that too, between the closest of neighbours. In the last three decades, high-level visits from India to Nepal have become a thing of the past. The Indian prime minister and president, meanwhile, have had time to visit other neighbouring countries but Nepal never seemed to find favour in India's travel itinerary. Nepal's requests, it seems, were quietly swept under the rug.
Healing the rupture
Indian foreign ministry bureaucrats and security sleuths have failed, or felt it unnecessary, to observe even a modicum of the principle of reciprocity normally practiced in the conduct of high-level visits. Such a condescending attitude on the part of the Indian establishment has considerably damaged, particularly the emotional aspect, of Nepal-India relations.
Among well-read and informed well-wishers of India in Nepal, this is being construed as India pursuing a discriminatory policy vis-à-vis Nepal, and demonstrating its big brother attitude. This has hurt the Nepali psyche and caused a deep emotional rupture in our bilateral relations. In a way, this may have provided ammunition for anti-Indian elements, both in Nepal and India, to further embitter our relations. In the meantime, no genuine efforts were made from either side to correct growing misperceptions. This was perhaps one of the reasons behind growing radical views in Nepal, particularly against the continued Indian attitude of benign neglect. Frequent exchange of visits at the highest political levels would have helped heal the rupture and toned down India-bashing, if any.
To begin with, India and Nepal need to heal that emotional rupture by forging heart-to- heart relations. That is possible only when there is direct engagement and interaction with our leaders at the highest political level from time to time, where the entire gamut of our bilateral relations are examined with an open heart and in an open and informal setting. Allowing bureaucrats and security officials too much operational freedom to handle relations as sensitive as ours was a big mistake on the part of the Indian Congress government in the past. It is good that the new Indian prime minister seems to have understood this imperative quite clearly and has already set in motion his efforts to rectify them. His trips to neighbouring countries, starting from Bhutan and soon to Nepal, are part of his efforts to repair ruptured relationships. As a devout Hindu and a devotee of lord Pashupatinath, some consider that Modi is also on a sacred pilgrimage to offer his prayer and pooja to Pashputinath. This news is just the icing on the cake of his visit.
Dealing politically
Of course, it is a given that our bilateral relations are extensive and intensive in scope and character. It may not be possible to find a silver bullet to shoot them all down at one go, despite the best of intentions. But once the level of confidence and respectability missing for long is restored and heart-to-heart relations are developed, we may be able to reshape our relations to benefit the people of both countries. Heart-to-heart relations would require that our relations are allowed to move out of narrow and dark bureaucratic alleys into an open atmosphere of cordiality, mutual respect and understanding.
Therefore, agendas of the meetings between the two prime ministers must not be laden with much bureaucratic details but informed by larger issues of national interest for both countries. In other words, it is political leaders, not bureaucrats and security agencies, who should be allowed to identify the main agendas for bilateral cooperation and set the tone of meeting for their deliberation. Once the two leaders agree on the main agendas for cooperation and pledge their firm commitment to implementation, other things will automatically fall into place.
This is not to say that the opinions of bureaucrats and experts should be disregarded altogether. They can and should offer their expert opinion, when sought and required, but it is political leaders who should be calling the shots. Therefore, Modi's upcoming visit’s main agenda should be on forging heart-to-heart relations between our two countries and two prime ministers, followed, of course, by other important trade, economic and security issues.
Thapa is a former chief of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affaris
they can.
Farmers in Indonesia now have a calendar for early planting dates. Their government is also helping them with techniques and equipment to plant certain crops sooner. In Malaysia, underground and recycled water is being encouraged for use so that the deficit the drought might cause can be dealt with. You may have floods as an immediate image for the Philippines but because of a possible drought due to El Nino’s effects, the Philippine government has even begun cloud seeding and has given farmers drought tolerant varieties of rice. In Thailand, similar efforts are afoot.
Bad monsoon
Nepal’s immediate neighbour, India, too has embarked on a multi-pronged strategy: the Indian government is preparing to release more rice and wheat from its stocks to keep prices from going through the roof. New Delhi will also provide seed varieties that can cope with dry conditions and fund state governments if need be.
So, the question now is: what has the government in Nepal done? As of this writing, the South Asian monsoon was not normal. The Indian Meteorological Department showed that Indian states bordering Nepal were not receiving adequate rainfall. West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in India had seen scattered rain or remained mostly dry. Monsoonal showers in June were the weakest in India’s in its past one-century record.
It is, however, too early to say that the monsoon is weak. The region might be lashed by rains and may even be flooded in the coming monsoon months. But what we are talking about here is taking precautions before a below-average rainfall fails farmers. After all, agriculture is still the mainstay of the Nepali economy.
And yet, Nepali farmers have not received any caution or advice from authorities; forget about aid like drought-resistant seeds or technology to cope with dry conditions. Like many other sectors, this, too, is where governance is sorely missing.
Climate changes
But, this is not just about the government in Singha Durbar. Being climate resilient is now a global agenda being persistently pushed by the donor community. Millions of dollars are pouring in to “help climatically vulnerable communities to adapt to such weather anomalies.” This is not to suggest that the forecasted below-average monsoon rainfall this time is climate change the El Nino phenomenon happens regardless and its effects are felt worldwide at varying intervals. But this also does not mean that the money that comes in for climate adaptation should be spent only when there is a global consensus on which weather event is the result of climate change and which is not.
The debate will go on. And so will the series of events of weird weather patterns. Scientists have said that under the changing climate, events like El Nino or its reverse, La Nina, will happen more often. The latest report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change said that oceans are becoming more acidic because of a rapid increase in the amount of carbon dioxide gas they suck in from the atmosphere. The carbon concentration in the atmosphere has now reached 400 parts per million, which is already a dangerous level. If it goes further up, scientists say, the world will become more than two degrees warmer from what it was before the industrial period and that could lead to runaway climate change.
So, while the world goes nowhere when it comes to cutting carbon emissions and the weather continues to become more and more strange, how to assist vulnerable communities cope with these changes becomes the key question. Issuing timely warnings and providing whatever possible help to them during an El Nino year like this could be a good rehearsal.
Good initiatives
There have been some success stories during floods. Last year, for instance, huge flood-induced loss of lives and property was avoided in the Karnali basin because of the effective use of mobile phone devices for timely alerts. If that idea is replicated in other river basins as well, damages from floods can be minimised significantly. To do all this at the national level, adaptation plans will have to be made and implemented genuinely.
There is no dearth of documents on the planning shelves of the government ministries. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nepal has already prepared the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA), followed by the Local Adaptation Program of Action (LAPA), and now, the National Adaptation Plans. Add to that other donor programmes like the pilot project on climate resilience.
From the pages of these voluminous documents, plans and programmes must reach vulnerable communities. If not with cash and technology, they can at least be helped with knowledge and timely warning. The good news is, Nepal has a strong community radio presence and that can be very effective for information
dissemination.
But has this asset been recognised by all those high-sounding adaptation plans and programmes? If it had, farmers this year would have already had a calendar for different planting dates.
Khadka is a BBC journalist based in London
2 The government’s recently announced policies and programmes affirmed the need for waste-to-energy projects in Nepal, especially as Nepal is spending nearly 25 percent of its GDP on petroleum imports. Generating energy from waste is not a new concept here, as Nepal has pioneered its own biogas digester technology, which utilises cow dung to produce cooking gas, and is installed in more than 300,000 rural households. This compares to an installed capacity of 550 megawatts and emission reduction of nearly 1 million tonnes of carbon equivalent each year.
Waste-to-energy is a modern phenomenon, with waste related to growth in the economy and thus to be treated as a renewable resource whereby increasing waste continues to generate additional energy. Such modern waste-to-energy projects are in operation in India and China, where these projects are subsidised up front to match the investment cost and/or provided extra incentives on the tariff by the utility to meet renewable energy obligations. In this context, it becomes critical to analyse the socio-economic and environmental implications of generating waste and the economic benefits of taxing and/or incentivising waste generation within that political, environmental and socio-economic framework.
Waste management practices
In Nepal, the existing Solid Waste Management Act 2011 requires waste to be managed under the 3R principle of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Despite the Act, the state of the rivers and roads in and around urban centres, including the Kathmandu Valley, clearly depict the scenario of waste management. Largely, waste collection systems in municipalities and urban centres have tried to integrate traditional informal waste collection practices with formal and (un)scientific systems, due to socio political reasons. This has not led to the optimum utilisation of resources and revenues for proper waste management.
The national average solid waste generation is almost 1,630 tonnes per day. Kathmandu generates the highest per capita waste at 0.39 kg/person/day, producing a total daily waste of 300 tonnes per day. The waste from Kathmandu Valley alone can generate nearly 5 megawatts of energy. The total waste from the 58 municipalities could add nearly 30 megawatts to the energy grid in Nepal, not even considering the recently added 41 municipalities.
What Nepal needs
Many sugar mills are currently generating electricity from their industrial waste, primarily to meet energy demands during loadshedding hours as otherwise, the use of diesel would increase the energy cost by threefold. Besides, this also helps fulfil local environmental regulations. This is also evident with many hotels, schools and security barracks that are replacing fuel wood and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) with adapted versions of local household biogas
technology.
The private sector is genuinely interested in investing in waste-to-energy projects but this sub-sector has seen very slow progress due to three factors. First, clear policy provisions inclusion in the national yearly planning strategy is a welcome initiative but it needs to be reflected as part of the renewable energy portfolio in upcoming reviews and papers, research and policies and longer term plans and reforms. Second, the lack of an attempt to introduce and transfer suitable technology and business options/models through pilots and third, a lack of outreach and promotion activities and customised support services for developers, municipalities and waste management entities.
Pushing ahead
Against a traditional large hydro project, waste-to-energy projects are easy to establish, often around urban centres to the extent that is environmentally possible and therefore, are less time consuming and less costly. The foremost necessity is to strengthen the capacity of local bodies and municipalities to understand the social, financial and environmental parameters of waste as a means for energy generation and thus, facilitate the implementation of such projects through the enhancement of beneficiaries’ participation.
Public-private partnership offers opportunities for operational efficiency and cost effectiveness. The role of the private sector will be more important for complex tasks associated with the operation of projects, as municipalities are less experienced in the areas of management and problem solving. The government should subsidise initial pilot projects for the costs to be recovered, albeit partially and to assure better services and quality as the public is generally willing to pay if the level of services is improved, especially for waste collection and electricity tariff. The current mediocre state of in hydro power should not be allowed to continue in the other areas of energy infrastructure development and waste-to-energy projects should be implemented in all its potential to improve energy security and fulfil the country’s wider development objectives.
Thapa is Assistant Director of the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
4 News of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s imminent visit to Nepal is being awaited with a great sense of excitement and anticipation. There are several reasons for this visit to be significant. First, it is important from the emotional standpoint. After years of neglect, a big and emerging economic superpower, and our closest next-door neighbour, cares enough to visit Nepal, which in the throes of a political transition. Among others, the visit serves to uphold the principle of reciprocity normally practiced by countries, as it also marks the end of the agonisingly one-sided trend of high-level visits to India from Nepal.
Principle of reciprocity
The exchange of visits at the highest political level is an important tool for constructive engagement and also for the enhancement of bilateral relations between neighbours and the international community. Such visits are helpful in restoring or maintaining respectability in bilateral relations. If well choreographed and appropriately conducted, there is much to gain. At a personal level, closeness, understanding and mutual admiration may develop between the guest and the host. Important bilateral issues bogged-down at the bureaucratic levels because of lingering misperceptions and misunderstanding can often find a quick way out, thereby providing a new lease on life to existing relations.
Of course, in the conduct of foreign policy, the term 'reciprocity' is often seen as being dictated by power. Weaker and less powerful countries can expect, but are not in a position to claim, reciprocity in relations from their big and powerful friends and neighbours. This also applies to high-level visits, as they too are part of the exercise of international relations. For powerful countries, the need to observe reciprocity is driven primarily by strategic and other national interest imperatives. Nonetheless, it becomes almost insufferable when such visits happen to be out-and-out one-way traffic and that too, between the closest of neighbours. In the last three decades, high-level visits from India to Nepal have become a thing of the past. The Indian prime minister and president, meanwhile, have had time to visit other neighbouring countries but Nepal never seemed to find favour in India's travel itinerary. Nepal's requests, it seems, were quietly swept under the rug.
Healing the rupture
Indian foreign ministry bureaucrats and security sleuths have failed, or felt it unnecessary, to observe even a modicum of the principle of reciprocity normally practiced in the conduct of high-level visits. Such a condescending attitude on the part of the Indian establishment has considerably damaged, particularly the emotional aspect, of Nepal-India relations.
Among well-read and informed well-wishers of India in Nepal, this is being construed as India pursuing a discriminatory policy vis-à-vis Nepal, and demonstrating its big brother attitude. This has hurt the Nepali psyche and caused a deep emotional rupture in our bilateral relations. In a way, this may have provided ammunition for anti-Indian elements, both in Nepal and India, to further embitter our relations. In the meantime, no genuine efforts were made from either side to correct growing misperceptions. This was perhaps one of the reasons behind growing radical views in Nepal, particularly against the continued Indian attitude of benign neglect. Frequent exchange of visits at the highest political levels would have helped heal the rupture and toned down India-bashing, if any.
To begin with, India and Nepal need to heal that emotional rupture by forging heart-to- heart relations. That is possible only when there is direct engagement and interaction with our leaders at the highest political level from time to time, where the entire gamut of our bilateral relations are examined with an open heart and in an open and informal setting. Allowing bureaucrats and security officials too much operational freedom to handle relations as sensitive as ours was a big mistake on the part of the Indian Congress government in the past. It is good that the new Indian prime minister seems to have understood this imperative quite clearly and has already set in motion his efforts to rectify them. His trips to neighbouring countries, starting from Bhutan and soon to Nepal, are part of his efforts to repair ruptured relationships. As a devout Hindu and a devotee of lord Pashupatinath, some consider that Modi is also on a sacred pilgrimage to offer his prayer and pooja to Pashputinath. This news is just the icing on the cake of his visit.
Dealing politically
Of course, it is a given that our bilateral relations are extensive and intensive in scope and character. It may not be possible to find a silver bullet to shoot them all down at one go, despite the best of intentions. But once the level of confidence and respectability missing for long is restored and heart-to-heart relations are developed, we may be able to reshape our relations to benefit the people of both countries. Heart-to-heart relations would require that our relations are allowed to move out of narrow and dark bureaucratic alleys into an open atmosphere of cordiality, mutual respect and understanding.
Therefore, agendas of the meetings between the two prime ministers must not be laden with much bureaucratic details but informed by larger issues of national interest for both countries. In other words, it is political leaders, not bureaucrats and security agencies, who should be allowed to identify the main agendas for bilateral cooperation and set the tone of meeting for their deliberation. Once the two leaders agree on the main agendas for cooperation and pledge their firm commitment to implementation, other things will automatically fall into place.
This is not to say that the opinions of bureaucrats and experts should be disregarded altogether. They can and should offer their expert opinion, when sought and required, but it is political leaders who should be calling the shots. Therefore, Modi's upcoming visit’s main agenda should be on forging heart-to-heart relations between our two countries and two prime ministers, followed, of course, by other important trade, economic and security issues.
Thapa is a former chief of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affaris