Terisa Tamang’s blog

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Terisa Tamang
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Nepal, being a landlocked country and surrounded by mountains, natural diversity, glaciers, lakes, perennial rivers, it is one of the best tourist destinations in the world. Nepal’s mountainous and challenging topography and socio-economic conditions makes it prone to climate change.

The general agreement that climate change stay below 1.5 degree Celsius has been impacting Nepal rather disproportionately compared to its size and its own meager contribution of the green house gases. Nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, water-induced disasters and hydro-meteorological extreme events such as droughts, storms, floods, inundation, landslides, debris flow, soil erosion and avalanche.

“In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lots of snow and ice but now most rock falls which is danger to the climbers.” says Apa Sherpa, 21 times Mount Everest climber. “Climbing has become much more dangerous due to the mix of rocks and ices, as the crampons that climbers must wear are incredibly slippery on bare rock.” He further added.

The warming has numerous impacts on ecosystems and biological behaviors. Some widely discussed impacts include snow melting and glacier retreat, drought and desertification, flooding, frequent fire, sea level rise, species shifts, and heightened diseases incidence. These ecological and biological responses can consequently lead to serious consequences for human wellbeing. Before talking on the scenario of Nepal, it is important to discuss theoretical underpinnings of global warming and cite some examples from other parts of the world.

Global warming is a globally distributed challenge and its consequences are widespread and alarming, with the nature and intensity of impacts varying over space and time.

According to Eriksson 2006, morbidity and mortality due to vector‐ borne and water‐related diseases kill 1.5 million people every year.

Over the past 50 years, the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history according to NASA. Because of global warming ice are melting from mountains which is occurring flood, landslide, effecting human life. A certain rise in temperature will lead to the bursting of the glaciers which are already at a greater risk.

The low income and subsistence users of about 38% of total population Nepal lies below the poverty line and are having hard time to afford for their livelihoods in Nepal. This is a great challenge to cope with climate change induced hazard and extreme events.

In 2015, excluding the electricity generated from large hydropower plants, 10.3% of all the global electricity was generated using renewable resources. To ensure that this percentage grows in the upcoming years, we must make sure that all countries have access to renewable technology. This could seem hard but we can put our optimum efforts to stand up for a common cause as being a global citizen. After all, the era of renewable revolution begins from us.

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