The Ministry of Forests and Environment, Government of Nepal, and the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal hosted the ‘Nepal Talanoa Dialogue’ on 22 November.

Addressing the opening session of the event, Minister for Forests and Environment, H.E. Shakti Bahadur Basnet, said the issue of climate change has a lot of prominence not only because it is an issue being debated globally but also because Nepal is placed in the top list of countries that are being adversely affected.

“We in Nepal are more keen to discuss about climate change since we are having to bear the negative impacts although our contributions to the overall carbon emissions globally is very low,” Minister Basnet said.

He expressed hope that the Talanoa dialogue being organized by the Ministry with the support of the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal would identify the possible areas of cooperation among different partners and pave the way forward for a more resilient and prosperous Nepal.

Secretary at the Ministry of Forests and Environment, Dr. Bishwa Nath Oli said, that there are clear evidences of rise in global temperature which should be checked through concerted efforts of all nations.

He said that Nepal views climate change as a development issue and has been working towards identifying the appropriate ways of becoming more climate resilient through the adoption of more environment friendly technology. Its goals are to strive ahead in the development front by cutting down carbon emissions to the lowest level possible, Dr. Oli added.

European Union Ambassador to Nepal H.E. Veronica Cody said that the outcomes of today’s dialogue will be helpful for the Government of Nepal to take forward at the UNFCCC conference, contributing to the assessment of collective progress and securing a meaningful outcome at the COP 24 in Katowice, Poland this December.

The Talanoa Dialogue is considered as an inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue.

She said that the EU is working at home and abroad to counter the effects of climate change.

“We are engaged in developing and implementing cost effective international and domestic climate change policies and strategies to limit the increase of global average temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius, which requires a huge reduction of emissions from all sectors, including changes in human behavior,” Ambassador Cody said.

Vice President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Andrew McDowell said that the EIB provided nearly EUR 20 billion for climate related investment worldwide last year. He also underlined that in Asia climate related activities is the key priority for the EIB and they look forward to further strengthening the successful energy partnership with Nepal to support investment in other climate related sectors. The EIB Vice President said: “Te EIBs visit this week seeks to enhance our engagement in Nepal as the world’s largest financier for climate related investment”.

Honorable Member at the National Planning Commission, Dr. Krishna Prasad Oli said that Nepal is capable of addressing the adverse impacts of climate change and is gradually integrating plans and programmes into the national policies to ensure low carbon emission.

“If we have the political commitment, we will certainly be able to deal with climate change through the mutual sharing of knowledge and expertise,” Dr. Oli said.

The event focused mainly on inclusive in-depth consideration of ‘Climate Change ’to achieve the long-term goal by peaking mainly to cut down emissions for sustainability. With rapid emissions reductions, the goal of the Talonoa dialogue isto reach a balance between net emissions and removals after mid-century, which is required to achieve the long-term temperature goal of limiting warming to well below 2°C, pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.The Talanoa Dialogue would then feed into a global increase in climate action in 2020 by informing the next set of national climate action plans (Nationally Determined Contributions-NDCs) that will be brought forward by Parties in 2020.

Bridging for sustainability to reach and build the strong evidence-based foundation, this event was facilitative, constructive, and solutions-oriented with the storytelling by the climate change interdisciplinary. Meanwhile the event manifested those ideas, skills, and experiences mostly focusing on three approaches to construct goals for common good: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

The participants of this event primarily were the stakeholders of climate change and representatives from Government of Nepal; Development Partners; national and international NGOs; Universities and Colleges; Civil Societies; Private Sectors and Media. The participants of this ecosystem goal were to build trust, aptly shared advance knowledge, through empathy and understanding to make wise decisions for further collective progressive work.

According to the organizers, “All the participants in this event explored collaboration opportunities that lead to better results, discussed the barriers and put forward ideas on how to address climate change in the national context.

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Participants shared their knowledge and experiences on climate change related occurrences in Nepal. They exchanged views on how the problems emanating from climate change could be addressed through the mutual sharing of knowledge and stressed on the need to step up wider cooperation among all stakeholders.

The event was organized with the technical support from the Climate Analytics and Clock b Business Innovations.

(Based on the press note received from the EU Nepal office, November 22, 2018, in Kathmandu: Ed).