<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a369c9c7e80680e04831ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933"/><figcaption>RENEWABLE TRANSPORT: Symbolic gestures like President Bidya Devi Bhandari using an electric limousine, and more practical tax breaks for EVs have won Nepal international praise for a proactive energy policy. However, reforms are still needed to encourage electric public transport. Pic: THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE</figcaption></figure>Residents of Kathmandu by now know that they breathe some of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/every-breath-you-take-air-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dirtiest air in the world</a>. But unlike elsewhere, that awareness has not created the public opinion pressure to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/open-air/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">force politicians to act</a>.Up to 35,000 Nepalis lose their lives annually due to diseases caused by air pollution. One in every 10 people in Kathmandu suffers from chronic lung diseases like COPD, bronchitis and emphysema. The average life expectancy of Nepalis <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/air-pollution-decreases-life-span,3999" target="_blank" rel="noopener">is reduced</a> by over two and one-half years because of air pollution.“We have seen that electric public transportation <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/guest-editorial/public-transport-is-equal-to-public-health,844" target="_blank" rel="noopener">can improve public health by reducing pollution</a>,” says Sajha Yatayat Executive Director Bhushan Tuladhar. “Recent advances in electric transport provide the solution. What is sorely lacking in Nepal is political will, long-term commitment and strategic planning for electric mobility.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25485&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Life in the time of tornados</a>, Ajaya DixitIndeed, Nepal’s policy makers no longer have an excuse to do nothing about air pollution: they can follow the example of China and India and announce a national campaign to switch to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/cleaner-air-with-greener-buses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">electric public transport</a>.India is rolling out 7,000 electric buses this year. The Delhi Metro is now powered by solar energy and plans to go fully solar by 2021.All 16,000 public buses in Shenzhen are electric. China has replaced all its petrol two-wheelers with electric motorcycles and scooters.Global demand for electric vehicles is rising rapidly, and manufacturers are having a hard time meeting demand, mainly because of the shortage of lithium ion batteries. The sale of electric vehicles overtook fossil-fuel cars in Norway last month.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/electri-city-cars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Electri-City Cars</a>, Sikuma Rai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/20-electric-by-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20% electric by 2020</a>, Om Astha RaiHere in Nepal, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/electri-city-cars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">electric cars</a> now make up 10% all of all new sales. The first 40 Hyundai Kona EV sold out as soon as they arrived, and the next batch of 40 are already booked. In fact, Hyundai launched Kona in Nepal before it did so in Australia and the US. The Korean car-maker listed Nepal as a top priority market in the Asia- Pacific because of tax breaks for electric vehicles here.“We were able to convince the manufacturers that Nepal was ready to go electric because of our hydropower potential and the tax difference between electric and non-electric vehicles that showed a strong government commitment,” explained Nirakar Shrestha of Laxmi InterContinental, which represents Hyundai in Nepal.While the retail price of petrol and diesel reaches up to 261% above the cost price, electric vehicles carry just a 10% tax on the purchase price.  Electric cars are exempt from road tax, which can be Rs30-50,000 per year for fossil-fuel cars. Nepal is the only country in the world with such a huge relative tax difference.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/from-a-fossil-past-to-an-electric-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">From a fossil past to an electric future</a>, Om Astha Rai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/cleaner-air-with-greener-buses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cleaner air with greener buses</a>, Bhushan Tuladhar<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a369f9c7e80680e04831bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>However, there are still challenges to overcome before electric vehicles gain greater public acceptance, including the lack of charging stations, undependable electricity supply, and inadequate parking lots. A fast-charge electric station costs a minimum of $30,000 and can charge only 25 vehicles a day. Establishing one requires a government subsidy as well as a regulator to permit the charging of different EV models.Kathmandu Valley alone has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/poisoning-the-air-we-breathe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">750,000 motorcycles</a>, which are a major source of toxic gases like carbon monoxide and ozone. Introducing tax incentives for bikes and scooters similar to those for private cars could be a pivotal move. Also, at the moment there is no registration policy on electric two-wheelers, discouraging buyers.In October last year, Prime Minister KP Oli unveiled an <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/20-electric-by-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">electric mobility action plan</a>, proposed to transform at least 20% of the fleet of public vehicles into battery-operated ones by 2020. Amidst much fanfare he inaugurated the first five Chinese, BYD electric buses inducted by Sajha Yatayat. President Bidya Devi Bhandari herself has a BYD electric limousine.Last year, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mayoral-airs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kathmandu Valley’s 18 mayors gathered for a workshop</a> organised by ICIMOD to discuss an air pollution reduction strategy. Since then, beyond lip service little has been done to establish electric public transport and make emission tests for fossil vehicles more effective.Local and provincial governments have shown an interest in providing financial support to develop electric public transport, but the plans are sketchy and ad hoc. A case in point is the confusing and conflicting proposals for electric bus rapid transit, monorail and light rail transit along the Ring Road. The proposals are restricted to speeches and slogans, but nothing concrete has been done.One reason is the high investment cost of electric public transport, which requires government to step in with subsidies.Over the years, revenue from the Petroleum Tax has grown to a whopping Rs5.2 billion. Some of this could be invested in a clean-energy electric transportation strategy.The Seoul-based Global Green Growth Institute (<a href="http://gggi.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GGGI</a>) has been helping the central government with just such a strategy on electric mobility, and to find potential investors. General Director Frank Rijsberman was in Kathmandu last week to sign an agreement to implement e-mobility in Nepal. GGGI is keen to help Nepal with its first purchase of 300 electric buses for cities across Nepal.  (See interview below)“Operating an electric transport fleet is more complex, requires higher initial investment and more infrastructure than traditional buses, but in the longer-term, renewable energy sources are not only ecologically but also economically viable,” said Rijsberman. “We believe that it is not only the right thing to do but also the best way of growing in the 21st century. In the coming years we hope to see a breakthrough and electric buses on the streets of Kathmandu.”Electric vehicles are now a necessity, not just an environmental statement. Neighbouring India and China have committed to manufacturing only electric automobiles by the year 2030. This means Nepal will be forced to go electric since most vehicle imports are from those two countries.Said Bhushan Tuladhar of Sajha Yatayat: “Like it or not, Nepal will have to go all electric in about a decade. So we may as well start planning for it. That way, the transition will be much smoother, efficient and advantageous.”<h2>Investing in renewables</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36a29c7e80680e04831cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="799"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Frank Rijsberman of the Korea-based <a href="http://gggi.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Green Growth Institute</a> was recently in town to sign an agreement with the government and Sajha Yatayat on electric mobility. Nepali Times asked him about the future of electric public transport globally and in Nepal.Nepali Times: Why is your Global Green Growth Institute so involved in electric mobility around the world?Frank Rijsberman: We are a young intergovernmental organisation set up in 2012 with 32 member countries and 20 more in the process of becoming members, like Nepal. We help governments plan green growth, a model of economic development that is both more environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. In Nepal, we helped the government develop a national electric mobility strategy, and we have also helped members mobilise $1 billion in climate finance.We are also working to make cities greener by managing water, sanitation and solid waste. I met with Nepal’s minister of forests and environment and he asked us if we could start working on forests as our next priority. We have done similar work in Indonesia and Myanmar, and that is likely to be our next priority here.Do you see Asian countries moving towards renewable energy?It is challenging to switch from big investments in coal and nuclear energy, because all those investments have become stranded assets. China and India are making enormous progress in renewable energy. Many other Asian countries are a bit behind — Vietnam is still planning to build 25 new coal fire power plants. We are working with governments to introduce large-scale renewable energy sources. The private sector will invest only if the government has the right policy, so we work with governments for that.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/from-playing-victim-to-proactive-leadership-on-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">From playing victim to proactive leadership on climate</a>How can Nepal mitigate on carbon, while adapting to climate change?Adaptation is still very much the number one priority for Nepal but it must grow to middle-income status by 2030, without increasing emissions, by investing in renewable energy. This is now the cheapest form of energy and decentralised solar energy is a much easier way to reach remote communities that were very poorly served by a centralised grid.So I would call it adaptation with mitigation co-benefits. It may well be possible to trade those emissions with countries that should reduce more but cannot on their own. You can have mitigation measures too, but the first priority for countries like Nepal that rely on agriculture is to make sure that society is no longer vulnerable and is more resilient to climate change.Also, many governments still want growth. But the quality of growth really matters; it should be environmentally sustainable. It used to be the right thing to do, but being sustainable is also commercially attractive.What progress are other Asian countries making to become low-carbon economies?China has become a real leader in electric transport. Shenzhen is the first city in the world with an all-electric fleet of buses. Beijing has also taken big steps in curbing air pollution. India has also made considerable progress in renewable energy. The next big thing will be energy efficiency in buildings.What are the prospects for electric public transport in Nepal?We have done electric bus projects in a number of countries and while it is more expensive initially, and also for infrastructure like charging stations and batteries, its operational cost is much cheaper. We are helping the Nepal Government find interested investors, and hope to see a breakthrough in coming years with electric buses on the streets of Kathmandu.

Sonia Awale

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Nepal’s electric transport future is here

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933419c7e80680e03df86jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1008"/><figcaption>PIPE DREAM: Part of a 69km petroleum pipeline connecting Amlekhganj in Nepal to an oil refinery in India, under construction in Patlaiya. The pipline is proof to many that the Nepal government has no intention of switching to renewable energy any time soon. Pic: Jiyalal sah</figcaption></figure>President Bidya Devi Bhandari will be leading the Nepali delegation at the Climate Summit (CoP24) in Poland next month, and environmental activists are lobbying with the Nepal government to get her to make a far-reaching policy statement on renewable energy.They say Nepal’s commitment of turning <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/20-electric-by-2020/">20% public vehicles into battery-operated ones by 2020</a> is not ambitious enough, and the President can announce in Katowice more meaningful steps towards electric mobility.In a symbolic move to end Nepal’s fossil fuel addiction, President Bhandari is already riding an electric  but activists say that is not enough. She needs to create political momentum by getting her government to announce a cut-off date for Nepal to turn all public vehicles into electric ones.Manjeet Dhakal, adviser to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) support group at the UN Framework Convention on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/on-thin-ice-in-the-khumbu/">Climate Change</a> (UNFCCC), says: “Nepal can move towards electric mobility if its head of the state announces a goal to this effect at the international climate change conference in Poland.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/electri-city-cars/">Electri-City Cars</a>, Sikuma Rai<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933449c7e80680e03df87jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="327" height="327"><iframe id="datawrapper-chart-CZIOW" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" src="//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CZIOW/4/" height="472" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><iframe id="datawrapper-chart-2DG41" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" src="//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2DG41/3/" height="472" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>Last week, Prime Minister KP Oli flagged off Nepal’s first five electric buses in Kathmandu, and unveiled the country’s first National Plan of Action for Electric Mobility.Bhushan Tuladhar of Sajha Yatayat, the public transportation company that got the first lot of electric buses on loan from the Lumbini Development Trust for Kathmandu routes, says: “Public transport is directly related to public health, and it is also linked to Nepal’s economic well-being. This can be the beginning of a new era in clean transportation.”The National Plan of Action envisages a separate unit at the Ministry of Environment for the promotion of electric transport, but many are skeptical about it, given Nepal’s poor track record in implementing commitments.A recent <a href="http://www.cansouthasia.net/wp-content/uploads/N-CANSA-State-of-Climate-Action-in-Nepal-FINAL-7-October-2018.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0IOLO0TREa5UjbdMLsBnUyTRyeaRfP-iDMW-bI2-tFyddYbj5KstNKOCI">report by Nepal Climate Action Network South Asia (N-CANSA)</a> says Nepal is actually moving in a reverse, non-renewable direction despite many past policies, strategies and international obligations to lower its dependency on fossil fuels – the biggest source of CO2 emissions.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/climate-climax/">Climate Climax</a>, Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/decarbonise-now/">Decarbonise now</a>, Ajaya DixitNepal’s Climate Change Policy 2011 and the Environment-friendly Vehicle and Transport Policy 2014 aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by steadily reducing imports of petrol, diesel and LPG. In 2016, Nepal passed its National Determined Contributions (NDC) aiming to turn 20% public vehicles into battery-operated ones.But since then, the country’s addiction to fossil fuel has only deepened. All the policies and strategies did not make a dent on imports. In 1993/94, the year Nepal ratified the UNFCC, Nepal’s total import of petroleum products was worth only Rs5 billion. By 2008, it had grown to nearly Rs40 billion, and in the past ten years it has more than tripled to an annual Rs150 billion. (See graphs)The reason is the explosive growth in the number of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2018/01/24/electric-cars-shock-fossil-industry/">fos</a>sil fuel vehicles from only 84,000 ten years ago to 438,000 today. Most of the increase was during the tenure of Maoist finance minister Baburam Bhatttarai in 2008-9. Part of the reason for the growth in petroleum imports was also the corruption-driven artificial shortage of electricity which saw a proliferation of diesel generators. Import of diesel grew five times in the past ten years.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933469c7e80680e03df88jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="848"><iframe id="datawrapper-chart-hKFc3" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" src="//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/hKFc3/4/" height="390" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>For every Rs100 earned from its exports, Nepal spends Rs169 just to import petroleum from India. Nepal is now also importing half of its electricity need from coal-fired thermal plants in India. Although it went down slightly with monsoon supply and new hydro powerplants coming on stream, Nepal imported 424MW of electricity from India this summer, which was about 35% of peak demand.Says Durga Upadhyay, a co-author of the CANSA report: “If it was not for remittances, our foreign currency earnings from exports would not even pay for petroleum imports.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-cost-of-light/">The cost of light</a>, Om Astha RaiDespite policies and symbolic moves to reduce petroleum imports, Nepal’s consumption is growing as the road network spreads and vehicle imports increase. The government’s plans to build a 36km cross-border petroleum pipeline from India and storage stockpiles in each Province indicates that there is no end in sight to the country’s fossil fuel addiction.Manjeet Dhakal says these moves indicate that Nepal’s policymakers believe the cost of ending the dependence on petroleum is too high. “But that is an outdated concept,” he says, “it is now possible to drive a country’s economy without using fossil fuels. PM Oli should learn from Costa Rica, a country he visited recently.”<iframe id="datawrapper-chart-ny5IE" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" src="//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ny5IE/5/" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933489c7e80680e03df89jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="351" height="555">Some argue that Nepal’s economy is so petroleum dependent that it cannot switch suddenly to renewable without assistance for the conversion of cars, and to add new hydropower plants. Nepal’s per capita <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/half-full/A-carbon-neutral-Nepal-is-possible-clean-Nepal,1064">carbon</a> footprint is negligible, they add, so whether or not Nepal goes for electric mobility is not going to save the planet.However, former energy minister Dipak Gyawali says: “The volume of carbon emitted by Nepal might be small, but the rate at which we are increasing it is even higher than the industrialised West.”Gyawali says Nepal should immediately declare a peak emission year, pass a policy to gradually replace all government vehicles with electric ones and impose a tax on fuel that can be used to subsidise electric vehicles.Nepal needs to do this more importantly to reduce its balance of payment deficit, save the country from bankruptcy, and reduce its political dependence on India, than to save the world from <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/melting-mountains-shake,3073">global warming</a>.

From a fossil past to an electric future

Rivers have been the lifelines of civilisations with their dynamic ecosystems providing vital services for human survival and ecological balance through the ages.&nbsp; But accelerating anthropocentric footprints are causing severe, and often irreversible, damage to river systems across the world, including those across High Asia, a region that sustains nearly a fourth of the global population downstream. An example is the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-the-bagmati-civilisation-is-becoming-uncivilised" target="_blank">Bagmati River</a> that courses through Kathmandu, crosses the Himalayan foothills to join the Ganga in India. A river that once shaped the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/when-it-comes-to-water-pollution,3196" target="_blank">Kathmandu Valley Civilisation </a>is now a polluted and biologically dead water body constricted by urban sprawl, choked by construction debris, chemical waste and untreated sewage.&nbsp; The loss of a sacred river is tragic enough, but its hazards related to health, life and livelihoods are not limited to the Valley, nor is its enormity fully gauged by the metrics of fatality, income loss, flood return periods, runoffs, embankment failure.&nbsp; It is a systemic collapse of ecological integrity, socio-economic stability and cultural heritage, affecting its downstream users as well. The death of Bagmati is a peril for a population size way bigger than circa 5 million residents of Kathmandu Valley. The degradation started in the 1980s and has accelerated. Why has not enough been done to save this iconic river that runs through Nepal’s capital?&nbsp; The Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project (BRBIP) was designed to make headway in restoring the river with a sewage treatment plant, dams for storing water to support dry-season runoff, recharge groundwater, creation of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/resurrecting-bagmati-the-river" target="_blank">green biodiversity corridors</a> along the river bank to also serve as recreation areas, reduce the urban heat island effect, and also provide cultural continuity. The project also envisages collection of hydrological data for managing Bagmati multipurposewater systems and providing flood forecasts and early warnings aimed at protecting lives and property, among other things. Most importantly, the project takes the integrated water resource management approach, which, in principle, is a holistic and collaborative way of managing all elements of the water cycle to ensure water security, public and environmental health and amenity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260329040336_9605240fa8c7d649ce49fbe43565130e3187e979338ccf959c4e9b8c581b7a4c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260329040336_9605240fa8c7d649ce49fbe43565130e3187e979338ccf959c4e9b8c581b7a4c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2126" height="1577" loading="lazy" alt="Bagmati NT"> </figure>  This should pave the way for managing a river as a connected ecological, social, and economic system by enabling coordination across agencies and disciplines, stimulating technological innovation and financial investment. The success of this approach depends on long-term political will and commitment that transcend political cycles, but also needs strong community and civil society in defining issues and proposing solutions, creating and sharing knowledge, taking independent action to inform practice, monitoring and evaluating policies, and participating in public decision-making. Civil society, especially, in making the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/encounter-with-bagmati-river" target="_blank">revival of the Bagmati River</a> a pressing governance issue. The Bagmati Action Plan 2009, a precursor to the BRBIP, was designed in response to lawsuits filed in 2000 and 2004 by an independent legal practitioner of Kathmandu against waste dumping in the river.&nbsp; It took him almost two decades of legal battle for Nepal’s Supreme Court to pass orders for mandatory septic tanks in all homes in Kathmandu Valley, relocation of squatters from Bagmati river banks to government-built houses, and embargo on dumping and burying garbage on the banks of the river and its tributaries. Despite court orders, however, actual results have been unsatisfactory. Restoration of Bagmati barely made it to any political debate or electoral manifesto this time. Treatment plants have not been operational for years, yet no one is held accountable. The population ignores waste segregation or single-use plastic rules to check littering.&nbsp; The current condition of the river therefore seems to have more to do with the lack of public awareness and behaviour change than the failure of various master plans. Why does the deep danger of a dead river fail to arouse widespread civil society concern, let alone action? The apathy is perhaps underlined by an innately anthropocentric understanding of the river as a mere resource to be exploited, rather than the backbone of existence.&nbsp; Such a paradigm shift is possible when river or river systems are understood to be necessary for &nbsp;a harmonious coexistence with human populations. The more pertinent question is not whether a dead river can be restored because there are many examples from around the world where that has been successfully achieved. It is whether we choose to restore our rivers for intergenerational equity. This would require a holistic perspective and political will to revive reverence for a river system so that its symbiotic relationship with human settlements can be restored. Roshni Gurung is Research Assistant, River Basins at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

A lifeline becomes liability

As a direct fallout of the Israel-American war on Iran, Nepal on Monday nearly doubled the price of aviation fuel in a move that is going to impact during the spring peak tourism season. The steep price hike of jet fuel appears to have been made to cushion the impact on the general public. The price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas were also hiked for the third time in a month on Thursday.&nbsp; Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) will now cost $2,237/ton up from $1,207. The cost of ATF in Kathmandu was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sky-high-fuel-price-hits-nepal-s-tourism-airlines" target="_blank">already one of the highest among Asian airports</a>, and this price hike will affect mostly long-haul flights to Istanbul, Seoul and Narita for airlines that need to refuel in Kathmandu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260404130420_4ae075d1e871fc5608cf242d6e309005d30cfdb6e6d0ecfb45ca7388a851c6aa.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260404130420_4ae075d1e871fc5608cf242d6e309005d30cfdb6e6d0ecfb45ca7388a851c6aa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1784" height="1294" loading="lazy" alt="aviation turbine fuel prices"> </figure>  Domestic airlines, which paid Rs127 per litre, will now have to pay Rs251 for their turboprop planes. “We have no recourse but to pass this on to passengers as a fuel surcharge,” said one executive of a domestic airline in Nepal. As it is, Nepal Oil Corporation levied a hefty tax on petrol and ATF in order to subsidise diesel and cooking gas. Many analysts were expecting a fuel price hike, but the near-doubling of the price of ATF means the new Nepal government is trying to protect ordinary citizens from raising the price of diesel and LPG even more than it has so far. Aviation fuel in Nepal is trucked in on tankers from Indian refineries and its price is highest in Kathmandu, and less in Bhairawa and Pokhara — transportation costs being higher depending on distance. But even in Bhairawa, ATF prices have doubled for the only international airline that serves it, Thai AirAsia.&nbsp; Most airlines flying Kathmandu from nearer airports in India, the Gulf and Southeast Asia will be less impacted because they can fly in on full tanks and need minimum refuelling in Kathmandu. But carriers like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/high-cost-lays-aviation-low-in-nepal" target="_blank">Turkish Airlines</a>, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, &nbsp;and Nepal Airlines which fly wide body aircraft on long-distance routes will be hit hardest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026040305040_a40db74375ebe0c28e7c35477bc262df9ae392a84e7bfa4033996181d69e0209.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026040305040_a40db74375ebe0c28e7c35477bc262df9ae392a84e7bfa4033996181d69e0209" data-rendition-name="original" width="1032" height="689" loading="lazy" alt="sky high prices"> </figure>  However, ATF costs have also been raised in regional airports like Hong Kong, India and Singapore. Aviation fuel at New Delhi airport has risen to $1,698/ton. Korean Air is adopting emergency measures to reduce expenses to make up for rising fuel costs. South Korea gets nearly all its fuel from the Gulf, and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz has been especially damaging for the country. Fuel makes up more than a third of the operating cost of airlines, and even a small increase in ATF prices can make a big difference. Crude oil prices have increased 50% since the West Asia war began on 28 February, and global ATF prices have doubled.&nbsp; Airlines in Asia, including Nepal, face a double shock. The first is the higher fuel cost, and the second is that fewer people are travelling. Nepal’s tourism arrivals fell in March compared to February. India has added up to 20% fuel surcharge on domestic flights, and has reduced flights by 12%. Chinese airlines have also been affected, with China Eastern preparing for a significant impact of the Gulf war. It has added fuel surcharges to new tickets, as have Cathay Pacific, Thai International and Air Asia. Vietnam has drastically cut the number of domestic flights, and the Philippines will ration ATF. Australia imports 90% of its ATF mainly from China which has stopped export to ensure domestic supply to its own airlines. Carriers like Qantas have curtailed flights, changing aircraft type on long-haul routes, and a fuel surcharge of up to 20% have been added to tickets. Most Asian airlines are adding fuel charges only to new tickets, and the increase will not affect the price of pre-sold tickets issued for April and May.

Fuel price shock hits Nepal aviation

<a href="https://www.triarchypress.net/michael-thompson.html" target="_blank">Michael Thompson</a>, who died on 18 March after suffering a stroke a few weeks earlier, was a former Gurkha officer, mountaineer, and <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">founding pillar of Cultural Theory</a>.&nbsp;
His daughter Ursula said it was a peaceful end, Mike himself had asked to be taken off medical support after doctors said they could do no more.
Together with his PhD adviser, the late Mary Douglas and fellow PhD student Steve Rayner of Oxford’s Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Mike chose to generalise from years of anthropological work—unlike other social anthropologists—to filter out common traits of human behaviour across time and space, and then to apply that to modern society and its conflicts.
Cultural Theory has also been used to explain water and energy conflicts in Nepal and California, seat belt and pension fund battles in Europe, the underlying social dynamics of kibbutz in Israel, and what Mike liked to call “argumentative technology assessment” plus much more.&nbsp;
Unlike other ‘descriptive’ social sciences, Cultural Theory is ‘interpretive' in its orientation, which makes many in the ‘descriptive tradition’ rather uneasy with its ‘uncomfortable knowledge’.
A classic example is the massive almost six-year exercise that resulted in the multi-country, multi-author 4-volume study Human Choice and Climate Change led by Steve Rayner and Elizabeth Malone for the US Department of Energy and the Pacific North-West Lab.
It was, and perhaps still is, the first time that the social sciences looked seriously into climate change. However, its insights and conclusions were uncomfortable enough for it to be ignored, and only Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Center covered it as a chapter in his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change a dozen years later.
During my various lectures around the world, I myself have found younger scholars in China, India, South Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America much more welcoming and open about Cultural Theory interpretations than in Europe or America.
Mike liked to say that his own work on Cultural Theory was initially conceptualised while <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3633" target="_blank">he was in Nepal climbing mountains</a>. He was part of the British expeditions on Annapurna’s South Face in 1970 and Everest Southwest Face in 1975.
Even while working on his PhD under Mary Douglas, which was published by Oxford University Press as Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. Mary Douglas and others having done work on the Cultural Theory of everyday goods and consumption (including drinking), Mike’s Rubbish Theory showed how unwanted trash or scrap eventually became invaluable antique.&nbsp;
Unfortunately, OUP withdrew the book after its eminent economics professor-board member objected to the book showing the limitations of economics in explaining value.
When I asked his wife Anne why Mike was not republishing it, she said it was probably because he is practicing what he preaches, hoping to see if that book can transit from discarded ‘waste’ to achieve ‘antique value’. &nbsp;It did, and was being put up on Amazon for an astronomical sum until Pluto Press republished it.&nbsp;
In line with Cultural Theory, which examines and explains everyday life, Mike’s sociology of mountaineering expeditions was published in Diadem Books’ Mirrors in the Cliffs in 1983 as a hilarious but astute piece titled Sahibs and Sherpas.
I first met Mike in April 1986 at the now famous <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/in-memoriam-jack-d-ives-1931-2024-rqpsk7eh" target="_blank">Mohonk Mountain Conference</a> in upstate New York, the conference with most of the world’s eminent mountain experts which resulted in a major scientific paradigm shift – the debunking of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1211" target="_blank">Theory of Himalayan Degradation</a>.&nbsp;
It resulted in the book <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Sustainable-Mountain-Development-Getting-the-Facts-Right-Jack-D-Ives,946" target="_blank">Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale</a> (with Warburton and Hatley), which was republished in 2007 by Himal book with a long updating foreword by Mike and me.
Our collaboration continued across many centres in the US and Europe starting with San Diego’s Western Behaviourial Sciences Institute in 1989/90 where I first met Mary Douglas and Steve Rayner (and became the first person in Nepal to tele-conference via landline phone connected to San Diego’s computer system).&nbsp;
We continued on to Battelle Pacific Northwest National Lab in Washington state that resulted in the monumental 4-volume Human Choice and Climate Change, and involved work with Oxford’s James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, King’s College London, LOS Center in Bergen, places in Germany and very much at the <a href="https://iiasa.ac.at/options-magazine/summer-2022/people-profile-from-everest-to-systems-analysis" target="_blank">International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA/Laxenburg)</a> since the early 1990s.&nbsp;
During forays to Europe and transits through London, I often stayed with Mike and Anne at their London Highbury-Islington house and later in Bath when he moved there. Incidentally, they had bought the London house rather cheap before its gentrification (their neighbour was a school where Tony Blair’s young children studied).
Between <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4675" target="_blank">mountaineering </a>and Cultural Theory, Mike worked as a builder, and he single-handedly retrofitted their London home, which he later sold to buy a much bigger and better house in Bath with money to spare as retirement fund.
The idea of what was good versus bad development in the Himalaya from a perspective was further developed as an IIASA/Oxford Science and Society research resulting in our 2017 book Aid, Technology and Development: the Lessons from Nepal.&nbsp;
While he was in Nepal for that research, we did manage to get him to deliver a <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-%20from-nepal/" target="_blank">Social Science Baha</a> lecture on the book’s essence, <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">Cultural Theory and Clumsiness: Some Lessons from Nepal</a>.&nbsp;
Sometimes our collective writings came from discussions in the strangest of ways and places. After a long meeting at the IIASA schloss, we ended up in a pub for beer, and the discussions were around what it would take for a city to be a force for good and not one bad for the environment.&nbsp;
If such a city could be designed, one could plonk it on the middle of a degraded landscape, which theoretically should then heal itself. Someone less inebriated obviously took notes and circulated it, which eventually resulted in the Engineering Sustainability paper On Governance for Re-engineering City Infrastructure.
Another time, I had to give a keynote presentation at an IIED/Sussex STEPs Center dialogue in London’s Goodenough College on re-imagining Development in LDCs. Following that talk, we sat down and produced our Restoring Development Dharma with Toad’s Eye Science.
Just before Covid struck, we (including Bruce Beck and Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer from IIASA) had been working on a Cultural Theory examination of four schools of engineering thought, our last meeting was at Steve Rayner’s Keeble College in Oxford as part of that exercise.&nbsp;
Its earlier efforts were explored in our work on transboundary risk management in the Himalaya at Bergen’s LOS Center and also dealt with in a chapter in EARTHSCAN’s IIASA publication Transboundary Risk Management edited by Joanne and others.&nbsp;
It argued that risk is socially constructed in four distinctly varied ways, where facts and values are entangled, leading to competing technological preferences. Mike desperately wanted to follow up on the Keeble meeting at IIASA, but – given the Covid fears already underway – Anne put her foot down and had him quarantined at home.
Our other on-going effort was, given that IIASA was founded during the Cold War as a place for scientists of the Euro-American West and the Communist East to work together to build confidence for peace, but after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that division (hence raison d’etre) no longer existed – to develop a global North-South axis for IIASA’s work.&nbsp;
We believed that was where the great challenges of tomorrow development debates as well as environmental concerns (including climate change) would play out. Towards that end, he was working with a range of Global South scholars and was very anxious to see if an IIASA-Nepal Social Science Baha/South Asia Institute for History and Philosophy collaboration could be developed.&nbsp;
Mike retained interest in Nepal’s developments up to his very end, even when on hospital bed, asking his daughter to find out from me what was going on with Nepal’s March elections that saw a seismic upheaval which decimated all the old political parties.&nbsp;
When Ursula described the gist to him, I am sure he was inwardly pleased that it vindicated Cultural Theory as Political Science’s contention that moral high ground activist egalitarianism not given proper place at the policy table can strike back at insensitive bureaucratic hierarchism and market individualism’s crony capitalism with swift and lethal vengeance.
Michael Thompson’s physical presence will be greatly missed, but his impact on interpretive social science – and its extremely relevant application to Nepal’s and other LDC’s developmental conflicts – will live on.
Dipak Gyawali is an energy economist with the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). He is a former minister of water resources.&nbsp;
To listen to Michael Thomson’s lecture at Social Science Baha in 2011 <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">click here.</a>

Michael Thompson, 89

Along with the Sherpa community, it is perhaps Kathmandu Valley’s Newāh Civilization that has been the most studied by anthropologists, architects, historians and social scientists.&nbsp; Tomes have been written about the built environment of the Valley’s former kingdoms, the influence of Indian culture, and how it in turn inspired the temples, monasteries and monuments in Tibet, through China right up to Korea and Japan. Lately, there has also been an attempt to recognise and preserve not just the brick and mortar landscape of Kathmandu, but also the intangible heritage of the Newāh people. A critical component of the ancient festivals in the streets, alleys and baha of the inner cities are ritual plays and dance. Gérard Toffin is a social anthropologist with the Centre d’Etudes Himalayennes at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, and has been researching in the region since the early 1970s, focusing on Newāh society and especially its Jyapu farmers. Lately, his work has focused on indigenous theatrical performances, and how they are evolving with modern influences.&nbsp; RECORDING RITUALS The result of his study is this hefty ethnographic book, Newar Theatrical Performances: Religious, Royal and Comic Aspects, delving into sacred performances. This is the first-ever detailed documentation of the minutest aspects of traditional plays and holy ceremonies of Kathmandu Valley. This book is not for the package tourist on a quick walkabout of Patan, the details and terminology can be daunting even for natives to navigate. But this is what social science research is supposed to do – take a deep dive into cultures that we take for granted either because we are a part of it, or because we have never bothered to find out its meaning.&nbsp; Dance forms with mythological themes, masked processions, gestures, facial expressions of the performers, have all been passed down from one generation to the next, adhering to age-old codes. The world is moving at an accelerated pace because of TikTok-induced globalised connectivity, but traditional gender or caste dynamics and hierarchies are carried over intact in many of these performances. It is as if traditional theatre itself is a time capsule giving us a peep into the past. Some of the performances and dance are in danger of going extinct as the population ages and the young migrate out. However, there has been a cultural renaissance among the Newāh guthi overseeing these ritual plays, dances, or chariot processions. The next generation of apprentices are being trained. This pride in heritage means that Kathmandu Valley civilization is not as endangered as it may appear.&nbsp; Gérard Toffin’s book is an important ethnographic work that will help preserve the Nepal Valley’s unique blend of urban-rural, cosmopolitan-agricultural, Hindu-Buddhist, indigenous-national. The Tantric choreography of Newāh theatre, just as the kama sutra depictions on erotic temple art, show Indian influence, but Toffin says they have been ‘Newarized’.&nbsp; One example is the sexually-explicit shadow play staged every year since 1690 CE by Jhyalcha Guthi in Patan that exposes the infidelity of King Yog Narendra Malla. Toffin devotes a whole last section of his book to irreverent plays (khyalah) that ridiculed the rich and powerful, the royals and upper castes and their shenanigans.&nbsp; He examines the importance of comic relief at a time when death was ever-present in historic Kathmandu with its frequent epidemics. One cholera outbreak in 1885 is estimated to have killed 10,000 people – a fifth of Kathmandu’s population at the time.&nbsp; The Saparu festival in Kathmandu and Mataya in Patan memorialised through street processions those who had died the previous year – and this was institutionalised into Gai Jatra by King Pratap Malla in the 17th century to console his queen after their second son was killed by an elephant. Families were asked to file past the palace to show the queen that she was not the only one grieving.&nbsp; Pratap Malla also allowed clowns, burlesque plays, and satirists to make the queen laugh. The Rana and Shah regimes which suppressed free speech continued the Gai Jatra tradition to allow citizens to let off steam. Rulers were lampooned, and the performances involved scatological jokes, cross-dressing and lewd acts.&nbsp; Interestingly, the Nepal Bhasa word ‘pyakha’ means both ‘dance’ and ‘theatre’ (today also ‘cinema’, as Toffin notes) and so the performances were also a combination of ritual dance, traditional music and a stage play. Stories involve gods, goddesses and mythological characters, and are passed down through generations of performers. (See adjoining article on Pāhāñ Charey.) Street performances by masked dancers, like in the ‘Katti Pyakha’ in Patan, enact divine themes. The moving deities demand as much reverence as their static idols in the inner sanctum of temples. The book devotes a whole section to the importance of cultic masked dances where the performer is possessed by the spirit, and goes into a trembling trance.&nbsp; Some of this is now simplified and secularised into performances for tourists in hotels, but the genuine original masked dance troupes still parade down the streets, proving that ancient and modern are made to co-evolve in ways that only Kathmandu knows how.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260329140352_aace3ece2e2cc577aa478d83de4b34930e6ff9c088d5f5e3f02fa178d124a60d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260329140352_aace3ece2e2cc577aa478d83de4b34930e6ff9c088d5f5e3f02fa178d124a60d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Newa theatre book details NT"> </figure>

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Michael Thompson, 89

All the world’s a stage in Kathmandu