Sideways News

Nepalese communities pay the price of climate change

Nepal has one of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions rate in the world: just 0.025% of the global total. Yet, according to a report by Oxfam, climate change is damaging crop production and leaving Nepalese communities struggling to feed themselves. We, the wealthy, energy-guzzling West are responsible: but should our response to the problem be global or UK-focused?

Changing weather conditions
Changing weather conditions in Nepal include temperature extremes: drier winters, delayed summer monsoons and intense rainfall. 31% of Nepal’s 28 million people are below the poverty line with most living in rural areas affected by these extremes.

"Communities told us crop production is roughly half that of previous years," said Oxfam’s Nepal Country Director, Wayne Gum, in the Oxfam report.

"Some said that while they used to grow enough food for three to six months of the year, last year many could only grow enough for one month’s consumption."

Oxfam believes the Nepalese Government needs to help these communities to reduce their vulnerability to changes in the climate through education and the adaptation of crops and farming techniques. Oxfam is also calling on the West, responsible for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, to do more to help countries like Nepal adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.

How far does our responsibility stretch?
It’s a huge challenge. Nepal - with its tiny carbon emissions rate - provides a powerful example. Its inhabitants are not the cause behind their country’s climate change, yet are suffering the effects.

Following natural disasters - the Asian Tsunami of 2004 springs to mind - the UK responds with millions of pounds of financial and physical aid. Yet, isn't our responsibility even greater in the case of climate change?

Within this lies a myriad of issues. Do we look to the outcome of a problem (the effect) and attempt to impact that, or to address the problem at the source? Do we pour financial resources into global aid in the hope of patching up the effects of climate change? Or do we take action nearer to home, first cutting our carbon emissions on an individual and corporate level in the UK?

A united front?
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) is battling out these precise issues in meetings throughout 2009, culminating in an international response to Climate Change in Copenhagen in December.

The idea that "the polluter pays" has been enshrined in the negotiations, as has the principle of the developed world’s "historic responsibility" to the developing world.

What has framed the negotiations has been an acceptance that industrialised countries are responsible for climate change. They therefore have a responsibility to both drastically cut their emissions rates and provide additional financial assistance to the developing world to enable them to adapt to the unavoidable consequences of climate change.

In which case, surely it’s not a question of tackling emissions at home or abroad, but a dual strategy.

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