<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/toxic-tihar">Stubble burning in northern India and Pakistan</a> darkens the sky over the region every year in October. We cannot wait for next October to try to fix the problem — planning to resolve the problem should begin now.&nbsp;
Farmers even in the Nepal Tarai have <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/going-up-in-smoke">started burning wheat harvest residue</a> because of the shortage of farm hands, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/smoke-screen">this April the haze combined with wildfire smoke</a> made people sick, blocked off mountain views forced flight cancellations.
Apart from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/breathing-can-kill-you">Kathmandu Valley’s vehicular emissions</a>, transboundary smoke blown in by prevailing winds from India accounts for much of the pollution in the country.
“The westerly wind cannot cross over the high Himalaya, and remains trapped on the southern side in Nepal, Bangladesh and India,” explains R L Verma, a transboundary air pollution expert at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok. "The pollution cannot disperse and is especially bad during winter due to inversion where it mixes with the fog.”&nbsp;
Prabhakar Shrestha, a research scientist at Bonn University, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-transboundary-haze-affects-nepal">wrote in Nepali Times in 2021</a> that the long-term average of winter Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) from December-February over the last 20 years in the region shows that winter haze extends throughout the Indo-Gangetic plains, with higher readings for eastern Bihar, West Bengal and Bangladesh, adjoining the Nepal Tarai.
"This alarming increase in winter AOD is due to an increase in crop-residue burning, rapid urbanisation, and industrialisation in the Indo-Gangetic belt," he stated.
There are now modelling studies that can trace emissions to their source which allow atmospheric scientists to pinpoint how much of certain particulate matter is coming from within Nepal, or from across the border. These models can also be used to predict future concentrations.
“Increasingly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mW7YmSSnes">we now have more and more pollution data</a> which has empowered people to demand,” added Verma, who was in Kathmandu recently to train researchers here on air quality monitoring, forecasting and developing an emissions inventory.
In the 1990s, air pollution levels in China were much worse than in India, but Beijing systematically improved AQI levels. A similar clean up campaign in northern India would have downwind benefits for Nepal as well.
The <a href="http://www.sacep.org/pdf/Declarations/05.Male-Declaration-on-Control-and-Prevention-of-Air-Pollution-and-its-Transboundary-Effects-for-South-Asia.pdf">Malé Declaration on Control and Prevention of Air Pollution and Its Likely Transboundary Effects for South Asia</a>, signed between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 1998 set a precedent for regional cooperation for transboundary problems.
For the last 25 years, the group has supported national governments in policy formulation and strengthening regional cooperation as well as establishing monitoring networks. But the fact that air pollution levels in the region have got much worse means that the Malé Declaration has failed to meet its lofty goals.&nbsp;
There are now plans to revive regional cooperation in transboundary pollution control, but most policy changes have to be made and implemented within national and sub-national jurisdictions. For example, in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/toxic-tihar">October 2023 crop residue burning was much reduced in the Indian state of Haryana</a> because of strict policy, but it increased in Punjab because of laxer controls (photo, above).
All this soot is blown up to the mountains, where it <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/dirty-snow-defrosts-nepal-s-mountains">accelerates the melting of glaciers</a> which are already shrinking due to global warming. The ‘black carbon’ particles are deposited on the ice and snow, making them melt faster.&nbsp;
<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19368">Black carbon</a> is also a short-lived climate pollutant along with methane, hydrofluorocarbons and tropospheric ozone which are responsible for up to 45% of current global warming.&nbsp;
They are expected to account for half the warming effect in the coming decades if emissions are not reduced, but because of their shorter shelf life, reducing them is a low-hanging fruit that also has public health benefits.&nbsp;
Two factors affect air quality: emissions and seasonal weather. We cannot control weather, but can reduce emissions by switching to cleaner alternative fuels such as hydroelectricity, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/this-is-bullshit">Compressed Natural Gas</a> (CNG) and solar power. Similarly, farmers need incentives to adopt alternatives to open burning after harvests.
“Every scientific problem has a political solution. We need to involve the government in finding solutions,” says Verma. “Air pollution can be controlled, it just needs political will to work regionally.”&nbsp;

Sonia Awale

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The politics of pollution

The natural world does not respect manmade boundaries. We demarcate rivers as the frontiers between nation states, but they change their course in open defiance of cartographers and politicians. Air pollution also <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/one-atmosphere">travels across national boundaries</a> with impunity. Industrial and vehicular emissions from the Gangetic plains are carried by prevailing winds to Nepal and the Himalaya. In November, north India and the Nepal Tarai is shrouded in a thick blanket of smoke from crop-residue burning on both sides of Punjab and other Indian states. These past weeks, the sky over Nepal has been thick with haze from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke">wildfires fanned by winds</a>, burning out of control on mountain slopes and along the East-West Highway. But travelling along that highway this week, we saw another source of smoke, acres upon acres of wheat stalks set on fire after harvest in the fields. Those fires we photographed in Simraungad on Monday correspond to red dots at that exact spot in the NASA infrared satellite image taken from space that very morning. There is another very large patch of red in Uttar Pradesh across the border in India.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240417090412_82b61db932d186206e9eacd57bdb277a22a9182e41e0b5b54bbffc6e0790751c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240417090412_82b61db932d186206e9eacd57bdb277a22a9182e41e0b5b54bbffc6e0790751c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="902" loading="lazy" alt="Wildfires in Nepal"> <figcaption>FLAME THROWERS: Groundview of stubble burning in Simraungad near Birganj on Tuesday. Photo: CHANDRA KISHORE</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal is vulnerable to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/unthinkable-in-the-current-climate">climate breakdown</a>, and a part of the reason for the wildfires is the long winter drought and deficient rainfall this month that failed to moisten the soil enough. No major rainfall is forecast for the coming week, and the temperature in the Tarai is reaching the upper 30s Celsius. With an average per capita carbon footprint of 0.03 tons per year, whatever energy Nepalis use will not reduce the global impact of the climate crisis. However, there are some things governments on both sides of the border can act on — <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/epicentre-of-pollution">air pollution</a>. It poisons the air we breathe and affects everyone: rich and poor, with the elderly and young most at risk. In the past three weeks, the AQI that measures the concentration of hazardous suspended particles in the air in the Nepal Tarai has remained above 200 µg/m3. The WHO’s threshold for air safe to breathe is 10 micrograms per cubic metre. All across the fertile Tarai plains of Nepal, farmers have just finished harvesting the winter wheat crop. Many farms are now mechanised with threshers, but while reducing the drudgery for farmers these machines have created another problem. The stalks of the wheat that emerge from the threshers remain in the fields. Because most young men have migrated, farmers find it easier to just burn the stubble. This is a widespread practice in northern India, and now <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-transboundary-haze-affects-nepal">stubble burning</a> has become common on the Nepal side as well.&nbsp; Instead of feeding the straw to livestock or burning it to cook, farmers set fire to their fields because the population of livestock has also decreased with the rise in migration.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240417090416_c81606760ddf50dcc7c3d176bbee986319d0910acda1c93de310e70e740550d1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20240417090416_c81606760ddf50dcc7c3d176bbee986319d0910acda1c93de310e70e740550d1" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1047" loading="lazy" alt="Wildfires in Nepal"> <figcaption>A NASA FIRMS infrared satellite image of Nepal and adjoining parts of India on 16 April. Each red dot is a wildfire, or farms burning stubble after wheat harvest.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240417090416_719866206a264a7a6e9600e470d13d2912b35b6d02c7656e61535fbed7283ba8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240417090416_719866206a264a7a6e9600e470d13d2912b35b6d02c7656e61535fbed7283ba8" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1163" loading="lazy" alt="Wildfires in Nepal"> <figcaption>The whole of Nepal was covered in thick smoke on 16 April up to an elevation of 2,500m.</figcaption> </figure>  Another reason Nepal’s farmers started burning the stubble is because of stricter border controls which has made it difficult for Indian traders to come over to buy straw from Nepali farmers, who now have no other option but to burn what is left in the fields hoping the ash fertilises the soil for the paddy season. “We are no longer burning straw and dung for domestic fuel, we have fewer livestock, so we do not really need the straw and that is why the farmers are burning them in the fields,” explains Rameswar Mehta of Simraungad Municpality.&nbsp; Contrary to some who think the ash is a fertiliser, farmers say the fires actually blacken and destroy the soil by killing nutrients and beneficial microorganisms, reducing harvests. A Facebook post this week shows a wheatfield ready of harvest on fire after sparks from nearby stubble burning ignited the field. It is obvious that unless farmers see alternative uses for their crop residue, like in industrial-scale composting or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/more-bullshit">biogas generation</a>, they will keep burning stubble.&nbsp; Manual harvesting used to leave only a few inches of stubble off the ground which the cattle fed on, now with the threshers there is just stubble lying around, which is too much trouble to pick.&nbsp; Madhes Province government has no record of the area of wheat fields that are being put to the torch. It must come up with a strategy to make farmers aware of the impact from crop residue burning on public health through pollution and the fall in productivity due to decline in fertility of the soil. There needs to be more intense public debate about the harmful effects of stubble burning and its trans-boundary impact. Chandra Kishore is a Birganj-based commentator who writes this monthly column Borderlines for Nepali Times.

Chandra Kishore

Going up in smoke

Earlier this month, Nepal received Rs1.6 billion from the World Bank as part of its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/will-nepal-ever-be-paid-for-saving-trees">Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)</a>, rewarding the country for increasing its carbon sink capacity. Nepal is the first in South Asia to benefit from this facility, and it is specifically to recompense the country for increasing forest cover in 13 Tarai districts between 2018-2024. “We are also trying to get another Rs13 billion from the facility while also preparing for free market-based carbon trading in the international market,” says Nabaraj Pudasaini of the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) Implementation Centre. Big emitters of greenhouse gases are under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions, and many have signed agreements to do so by investing in decarbonisation projects in developing countries. Countries that emit more than a specified amount of carbon would be able to buy emission rights from countries that emit less. Nepal is internationally known for its community forestry program which has been largely credited for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous">increasing tree cover to over 45%</a> in less than three decades. But this achievement had not been adequately recognised or rewarded internationally before. Forests, especially in the tropics, absorb and store large amounts of carbon while releasing oxygen in a process known as photosynthesis. <a href="https://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/en/">Preventing deforestation</a> and increasing canopy cover is considered a much more achievable goal than reducing emission in the scale necessary to limit global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. COP11 in Montreal in 2005 first proposed reducing carbon emissions by improving forest quality by halting degradation. By 2015, a new mechanism of financial assistance was created to help less developed countries with sustainable management of forests <a href="https://www.un-redd.org/">(called REDD+)</a>. Under this new mechanism, countries receive aid based on their efforts to prevent forest degradation and increase carbon sink, and in 2021 the World Bank was entrusted with implementing it. Nepal’s FCPF receipt this month was calculated on the basis of 2.4 million tons of carbon stored at a rate of $5 per ton. In the second phase, Nepal will receive more than Rs4 billion within the next year for storing an additional 7 million tons of carbon. Eighty per cent of this amount obtained from carbon trading needs to be spent on local beneficiaries and indigenous communities.&nbsp; But carbon trading is not easy, Nepal needs to prove that protected forests will not be destroyed in future.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="Greenbacks for greenery NT "> <figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Explains carbon trading expert Yugan Manandhar. “Forests should be handed over to the community and shown that they are managed sustainably. Proving this will be particularly challenging; forest encroachment and degradation is rife in the Tarai.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke">Deliberate forest fires</a> have also added to the challenge because they increase carbon emissions and reduce the sink capacity of forests. The basis for the amount that Nepal received was set five years ago by calculating the carbon reserves of forests in the 13 Tarai districts. In the meantime, sustainable forest management, tree plantation, forest destruction and erosion control were prioritised to increase carbon reserves in those forests. Nepal is signing another carbon trading agreement during the ongoing Baku climate conference. The <a href="https://www.leafcoalition.org/">Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF Coalition) </a>proposes to sell the carbon stored in the forests of Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces. For this, Nepal signed the letter of intent three years ago at COP26 in Glasgow. The target is to store 70 million tons of carbon in 32 million hectares of forest in the three provinces per which Nepal will receive Rs13 billion in four years at $10 per ton with provisions to increase the rate if various conditions are met. However, the agreement in itself doesn’t guarantee the amount. According to the targets set by Nepal, forest degradation should be stopped and carbon reserves increased by protecting tree cover. Preparations are also underway for clean air carbon trade because it has offset fossil fuel use by introducing 30,000 electric vehicles. Nepal has been selected for the first round to receive $40 million within one and a half years through the Clean Air System of the World Bank. Given that most of Nepal’s energy mix is from biomass, replacing them with electric stoves can significantly improve health by reducing indoor pollution as well as strengthen the country’s capacity for carbon trade. “Nepal's goal now is to sell carbon in the free market where carbon credits are bought and sold based on supply and demand in an open and transparent manner,” adds Pudasaini of the REDD Implementation Centre. “Nepal can now set its own price and bargain with interested buyer countries and organisations.” Lately, India has been discussing setting up a carbon market. Nepal has exported Rs12.72 billion worth of electricity to India so far this fiscal year, which can be traded under Nepal’s carbon market. “Carbon trading can create significant economic benefits for Nepal, which will help reinvest in development and environmental protection projects,” says Manandhar. “But we must prioritise sustainable management of forests, cutting older trees and allowing regrowth as well as promoting electric stoves and electric vehicles.”

Greenbacks for greenery

Khukri Rum is <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3719#.WurBk6SFPIU">one of Nepal’s most iconic brands</a>, and is now launching a new Cask Series premium product to sell in Nepal and abroad. The Cask Series Smoked Finish Khukri Rum is a limited edition with only about 7,000 bottles, most of it for export and rest to be sold to rum connoisseurs in Nepal itself. Each bottle is numbered and will mention the cask from which it is derived. “We are working on taking a classic Nepali rum to a new luxury premium brand category, the Cask Series will only be produced this year with new product ranges in future,” explains Subash Lamichhane, managing director of Nepal Distilleries that first started making Khukri rum in 1959 in Balaju and has never stopped. Fermented from molasses in Bara district in the Tarai after the annual sugarcane harvest, the rum is matured for at least eight months during distillation. The distillery bottles the classic Khukri XXX, Coronation Khukri XXX, Khukri White Rum and Khukri Spiced Rum.&nbsp; The distillery is now adding this limited edition of its ‘Cask Series’. While the original rum is stored in huge wooden vats, the rum used for this more exclusive line is in smaller casks made either from oak or sal, with charred insides to give the rum a smoky flavour. The Cask Series rum is indeed smokier than the classic, while the spiced rum tastes toasty and mostly of cardamom. The company has a tasting suite with a master blender and tasters who have to approve the palate test.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241122131124_10b8ddca93b37b0348bf964b4f09e7fac6ef4e754cca6231368850539cd558e2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241122131124_10b8ddca93b37b0348bf964b4f09e7fac6ef4e754cca6231368850539cd558e2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1498" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Khukri Rum"> </figure>  The packaging for the Cask Series is as special as the process. A sturdy patterned box that opens up to a black glass bottle with gold lettering, and an indication of which cask the rum is from. These are then shipped to premium customers around the world One of the reasons this is the more expensive premium line is because the casks are smaller than the vats and the blenders reject more than half of the rum in the casks when the aging period is complete. The trick for the blender is also to decide when to take the run out of the cask.&nbsp; Says Lamichhane: “If we have 25 casks, we expect to throw away about fifteen.”Over the decades, Nepal Distilleries have created and maintained a brand that feels quintessentially Nepali, and has served as Nepal’s ‘ambassador’ with exports to Germany, Korea, Belgium, Finland, the Czech Republic, besides the existing markets among Nepalis in the US, UK, Hong Kong and Australia. &nbsp;Its unique <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/khukri-rum-sharpens-its-act">khukri shaped bottle</a> first introduced for King Birendra’s coronation in 1975 has been a collector’s item. The bottle and rum have been a staple for Nepalis and visitors to take as gifts when they leave the country, and is used as decoration on bar tables around the world. Now, nearly 40 years later, even that bottle will soon be getting a makeover with a sharper design and sleeker handle. “Our bottle design has always been instantly recognisable, and it is,” says Lamichhane. The Himalayan restaurant at The Hague, for example, has a Khukri Coronation bottle adorning its bar (page 6-7). In Washington DC Himalayan Heritage Restaurant &amp; Bar offers ‘Nepalese Khukri Rum’ mojito in its drinks menu with fresh mint, soda water, lime juice and sugar syrup, for $12.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241122131124_b9474db3fc83c85845348dddc30c49652ee1f17229531867fa241de50849cedc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241122131124_b9474db3fc83c85845348dddc30c49652ee1f17229531867fa241de50849cedc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Khukri Rum NT"> <figcaption>Christopher Armes, master blender of the Cask Series.</figcaption> </figure>  A distinct element of the award-winning <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/khukri-rum-gets-award">classic Khukri rum</a> is its burgundy colour from caramel sourced from cooking sugar and blended with the raw rum. The spirits are then stored in a warehouse with floor-to-ceiling vats. The vats are not just for storage, the wood in the vats imparts flavour into the rum, and removes a lot of the harshness. &nbsp; On a visit this week, the bottling room was just about to begin for the day and the production line was churning out different shapes and sizes of Khukri Rum bottles. Most of the process is automated, including screwing bottle caps, sticking labels, placing the government seal, and packaging. The only manual intervention is the quality control where bottles are held against the light to check for sediment and colour. A mural on the wall of the distillery in Balaju depicts the rum-making process. A lady slings sugarcane on her shoulder, the molasses is churned in a pot, water is channelled into the distillation process, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom are added to a container, and finally there is a bottle of the classic Khukri Rum against a Kathmandu backdrop.

Khukri goes premium with new rum

Turkish Airlines has introduced a new amenity kit collection designed in collaboration with French fashion house Lanvin for international business class passengers on flights more than five hours. It consists of five pieces designed for sustainability and elegance. Bags are reusable and will consist of Lanvin cosmetic products like hand and body lotions and lip balm. Eye masks and socks are made from recycled materials, earplugs are packaged in paper and the toothbrush is bamboo.

Turkish amenity kit

Nepal now generates a surplus of electricity and it is all from renewable hydropower. Nearly half the country is under forest cover. Despite meeting these decarbonisation goals, Nepal’s hydropower plants are threatened by increased risk due to climate impact.&nbsp; Till <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">28 September</a>, Nepal was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/india-nepal-sign-power-exchange-deal">exporting just over 1,000MW</a> of electricity to power-hungry India, when flash floods and landslides unleashed by historically heavy rains damaged over 30 hydropower plants across the country, temporarily <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/power-to-the-people">slashing nearly half the power generation.</a> The 456MW Upper Tamakosi in Dolakha was the hardest hit and it will take six months and Rs2 billion to repair. This has significantly reduced exports as well as domestic generation. Two months later, Nepal has still not been unable to fully keep its export commitment, and is actually paying Rs100 million in fines to India. Thirty-seven existing and under construction projects under the Independent Power Producers' Association Nepal (IPPAN) suffered Rs2.5 billion in damage. One of them is the 22MW Bagmati project in Makwanpur which was almost completely buried in flood debris. Even before <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">record-breaking rain in September</a>, 15 other hydropower projects had been damaged by floods. Last year, floods caused by heavy localised rain damaged 28 hydropower plants. World governments met in Baku for COP29 to discuss the Loss &amp; Damage Fund and the Adaptation Fund, but for countries like Nepal the commas and brackets are meaningless until they are turned into $ and €. And likelihood of adequate compensation for climate-related damage is a long way off, if ever. Nepal’s national strategy is to use its vast hydropower resource as clean energy to spur economic growth, job creation, and boost export revenue. But the plants are located in narrow Himalayan valleys prone to landslides and floods even at the best of times. Now, those <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/changing-climate-for-investment-in-nepal">risks have been heightened by weather extremes</a> due to climate breakdown. At present, Nepal generates over 3,300MW of clean hydropower, and the target is to reach 12,700MW in the next five years. Projects equivalent to 6,000MW are under construction or ready to start. The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has an Energy Development Roadmap and Action Plan with the target of producing 28,500MW by 2035 by when more than half of it will be exported.&nbsp; “The climate crisis will further change the rainfall patterns making hydropower generation a big question mark in the future,” Manjeet Dhakal in Baku, who is also the Nepali adviser to the LDC Chair at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “We are building hydropower projects on rivers without evaluating risk. This whole process needs to be reviewed and reconsidered.” The report of the National Adaptation Plan published by the Ministry of Forest and Environment last year mentions that hydropower production, transmission and distribution will be at risk from flash floods, debris flows, glacial lake outbursts and rising temperatures.&nbsp; This risk is not confined to Nepal. Average global temperatures have increased by 1.3°C compared to the pre-industrial era. Worse, the Himalayan mountains are warming faster than the global average by 0.7°C because of elevation-dependent warming. A study conducted by our own Department of Hydrology and Meteorology in 2017 showed that the average temperature in Nepal has increased in the last four decades. Scientists say this is leading to extreme weather unleashing floods and landslides on slopes already destabilized by seismicity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241124071128_d22901a360e8958f606d80ffa21defba05a671f65afec65539dc21a6885d8345.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241124071128_d22901a360e8958f606d80ffa21defba05a671f65afec65539dc21a6885d8345" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Right climate for Nepal’s energy transition NT"> <figcaption>BIBLICAL RAIN: Photo taken during catastrophic rain on 27-28 September at the Upper Tamakosi project site that destroyed the control room, killing four staff and burying the sedimentation tanks. Photo: RSS</figcaption> </figure>  Increased atmospheric temperatures has made the monsoon rains more erratic. It does not rain when it is supposed to, and it comes down in torrents when it is not supposed to. The September floods happened two weeks after the monsoon was supposed to retreat from central Nepal. Kathmandu Valley received half its annual precipitation in just over a day. &nbsp; Winter precipitation has also failed, especially in the high mountains and trans-Himalayan valleys. Thirteen of the past 19 years experienced winter drought. This impacts on dry season flows of the rivers, reducing hydropower generation. Nepal’s power capacity normally goes down by one-fourth during winter, but the gap is widening. The Kabeli corridor could only generate 20MW November-March even though plants there have an installed capacity of 200MW. Similarly, Upper Tamakosi only produced 65MW at most against its 456MW capacity last winter. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) pays producers double the price for winter electricity, Rs8.40 per unit. Even though winter operation is highly profitable the rivers run low and NEA has to import from India to meet the winter demand. “This is not just a weather problem but a serious challenge also for the country's energy future, good climate-friendly design should be combined with policy and effective implementation,” says Subarna Das Shrestha, a hydropower investor and CEO of Sanima Mai Hydropower. “Insurance premiums have gone up as well, and settlement for damage is not timely.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/climate-risk-to-hydropower-investment">Hydropower investment</a> at one time was regarded as having a high rate of return. Now, some investors have become <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-smarter-himalayan-infrastructure">wary of the risks involved</a>. Says IPPAN’s Uttam Blon Lama: “Hydropower projects expected to give stable returns are now looking risky. Not only is climate adaptation design and planning expensive, but future repair and maintenance costs will also skyrocket.” Nepal has only one storage type dam <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/rivers-be-dammed">in Kulekhani</a> and another one is being built in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/missing-pieces-of-the-hydropower-jigsaw">Tanahu</a>, but they are also at risk. In September, the sluice gates of Kulekhani Dam had to be opened causing loss of life and destruction downstream. Nepal has to learn lessons from the deadly collapse of the $1 billion <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">Chungthang Dam in Sikkim</a> in October 2023 cause by a glacial lake burst. Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) in Nepal pose potentially catastrophic risk to infrastructure. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">Thame flood in August</a> was a relatively minor debris flow that damaged half of this village in the Everest region when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood">two glacial lakes at 4,760m burst</a>. Luckily there was no loss of life. Of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">47 high-risk glacial lakes</a> in the eastern Nepal Himalaya, 21 are in Nepal and the rest are in rivers in China that are tributaries of the Arun and Bhote Kosi where Nepal has major hydropower plants under construction, or planned.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241123021128_b596cd8520c57a6c5476031e7a3ea6510f26b464c4d5351d2bc10f6f7d6b70d8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241123021128_b596cd8520c57a6c5476031e7a3ea6510f26b464c4d5351d2bc10f6f7d6b70d8" data-rendition-name="original" width="871" height="648" loading="lazy" alt="Page 10-11 map #1236 NT"> </figure>  Global temperature rise is accelerating the melting of Himalayan snow and ice, increasing the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/living-below-nepal-s-melting-mountains">number and size of glacial lakes</a> so that we do not even have names for them. Imja Tso did not even exist in the old trekking maps until 25 years ago, but is now a 2km long lake. “Natural moraine dams in the mountains are weak, and the projects downstream can face major destruction if they burst, and the risk will only increase in future,” warns climatologist Arun Bhakta Shrestha at the <a href="https://www.icimod.org/">International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)</a>. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/terrifying-assessment-of-a-himalayan-melting">An ICIMOD assessment in 2019</a> projected that if present heating trends continue, as they probably will, the Himalaya will lose two-thirds of our glaciers by the end of this century. “Generally speaking, hydropower developers hand over the project to the government after 30 years but by that time given the climate risks, they may not be an asset anymore,” says Manjeet Dhakal. Indeed, the cascade of expensive projects India is building on the Arun River are supposed to be handed back to Nepal in 25 years, but there is a big ‘if’ about whether they will survive that long. &nbsp;&nbsp; Planning of hydropower projects is still based on historical hydrological data, and does not take into account future temperature rise and its consequences. Investors, on the other hand, say that planning hydropower projects with climate components would make them even more expensive.&nbsp; “It’s not that we aren’t preparing for climate risk, we design keeping in mind the once-in-100-year flood,” says Blon of IPPAN. “But if we start designing based on once in 1,000 years flood, the cost would be so high that we won’t be able to build them at all.” Nonetheless, Subarna Das Shrestha of Sanima Mai Hydropower says that there is no option but to go for climate smart infrastructure despite the higher cost. Sanima Mai's powerhouse, for example, is completely underground. The strategy could also be to spread the risk by building less expensive plants located on rivers all over the country. Nepal is also diversifying away from its sole reliance on hydroelectricity, which at present supplies 92% of the power in the grid. Most of the rest comes from solar plants, where the total potential has not even been scratched. &nbsp; This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>  &nbsp;

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