The document discusses Nepal's progress on achieving several UN Sustainable Development Goals related to the environment and climate change. It notes that Nepal has made policies and plans to align with international agreements on climate change. However, it faces ongoing challenges to increasing awareness, adopting multi-sectoral partnerships, addressing capacity issues, and focusing on disaster risk reduction. Key priority areas identified for further action include generating more community-level climate change awareness, preparing localized adaptation plans, strengthening climate impact data collection, and providing financial and technological support for climate initiatives at provincial and local levels.

1. Sustainable Development Goals
Progress Assessment
Related to Environment and
Climate Change
By
Sushant Luitel
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2. Sustainable Development Goals
• The Sustainable Development Goals 2016-30 are a global call to action to end
poverty, protect the planet and the environment, and ensure global peace and
prosperity.
• Their 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators seek to address not just the
manifestations, but the complex and entrenched roots of the economic, social and
environmental problems of the contemporary world.
• The SDGs represent the most ambitious compact ever undertaken by the global
comity of nations.
• Nepal was one of the countries that took an early lead in launching the national
SDG roadmap.
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3. Cont…
• The SDG Status and Roadmap 2016-30, and the Needs Assessment, Costing
and Financing Strategy set out goals, targets and indicators as well as the
policy and financing strategies to achieve the SDG goals by 2030.
• The Constitution of Nepal 2015 incorporates many of the SDGs, and the
vision of the 15th Plan (2019/20–2023/24) is built around the SDGs’
gradual achievement.
• All major sectoral strategies are aligned to the SDGs.
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5. SDG 6- Clean Water and Sanitation:
• Only 21 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water, although basic
water supply coverage is 88 percent.
• There has been a significant improvement in sanitation, with 85 percent of the
population using toilets.
• There is no sufficient data for important parameters on water quality, water use
efficiency and protection of water-related ecosystems.
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6. Cont…
• On industrial waste water, there has been slow progress, as 95 percent
of waste water remains untreated.
• In spite of much policy attention, progress in the WASH sector, it
needs further improvements.
• Also, the sustainability of existing systems is an issue that needs to be
addressed.
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7. SDG 7- Affordable and Clean Energy:
• Proportion of population with access to electricity is now 88 percent, per capita
energy consumption is 20 gg, electricity consumption overall has gone up to 260
KWh and installed hydro-electric capacity is 1,250 MW – all indicating that there
continues to be progress in the right direction.
• But use of primary solid fuel and LPG continues to remain high and the share of
renewable energy in final energy consumption remains a mere 5 percent.
• Clean energy generation and use is improving, but has to be reflected in expanded
end usage in households and in the transport sectors.
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8. SDG 13- Climate Action:
• The adaptation plan (national, local and community level) preparation
and implementation have been progressing well. Sixty-eight local
adaptation plans and 342 community level adaptation plans are under
implementation.
• Overall, progress in integrating climate change into all development
policies and programmes remains slow for lack of requisite awareness.
• The data base on climate change impacts has to be strengthened.
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9. Cont…
• Climate changes has emerged as a global problem over recent decades due to the
increasing and uncontrolled use of fossil fuels, increased release of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere and resulting depletion of the ozone layer, continuous rise
in global temperature, warming oceans, changing global, regional and local
climatic patterns and frequency of extreme climatic effects.
• The impact of climatic change is more severe in Nepal, due to its mountainous
terrain and fragile geology.
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10. Cont…
• Nepal’s contribution to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions is miniscule
(0.027 percent), but maximum temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.056
Celsius per year and more so in the high Himalayas.
• The impact of climate change has been wide-ranging from agricultural crops and
production, glacial melt and river hydrology, ground water resources, cloud bursts,
vulnerability of settlements, floods and landslides and loss of life and property.
• SDG 13 aims to take urgent action to combat the effects of climate change and
slow its impacts through mitigation and adaptation measures.
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11. SDG 13 – Government Policies and Plans
• Nepal has endorsed all international conventions, agreements and protocols on
climate change including the UNFCC 1992, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement,
Sendai Framework and the SDGs, and has formulated national policies, plans and
institutional mechanisms for implementation and monitoring accordingly.
• In 2009 a Climate Change Council was created as an apex body to provide
guidelines and policy directions.
• Climate change policy was adopted in 2010 together with a National Adaptation
Programme.
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12. Cont…
• Accordingly, strategies to reduce Carbon emission, enhance Carbon stock and
ecosystem resilience, promote alternative and clean energy, mitigate disaster risks,
facilitate scientific land use, promote food security, nutrition and livelihoods
through, for instance, climate-friendly agriculture have been formulated and are
being translated into implementable programmes.
• A climate change budget code was introduced and efforts were started to
internalize climate change-related investment in the budget cycle.
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13. Cont…
• The strategies of the 14th Plan aimed to make environmental management an
integral part of all development programmes, internalize investments to reduce the
impacts of climate change within the national budgetary system, reduce disaster
risks and promote mitigation, and increase the quality and reliability of
meteorological data.
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14. Cont…
• The objectives of the 15th Plan are to minimize the impacts of climate
change and enhance adaptation capacity as indicated in the Paris
Agreement, promote environmentally-friendly clean energy and green
development, and derive maximum advantage from international
finance and technology available for mitigation and adaptation of the
impacts of climate change.
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15. Stakeholder Partnership
• Addressing the impact of climate change requires awareness, a road map for
action, and capabilities as well as support for action at all levels, more so at the
level where it matters most – at the level of individuals, households and
communities.
• A broad partnership of government agencies, local governments and communities,
NGOs, (Civil Society Organization) CSOs and external agencies with the know
how and technology to support local initiatives is essential for creating awareness,
developing local adaptation plans, translating these plans into effective actions and
learning and improving upon the experiences.
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16. Challenges
• Increasing awareness at the level of policymakers.
• Increasing awareness at the individual, household and community
levels.
• Adopting multi-sectoral partnership.
• Addressing institutional capacity, finance and technology issues.
• Focusing on disaster risk and mitigation.
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17. Way Forward: Priority Areas for Action
• Awareness generation on climate change. Sustained awareness is
needed at the community level through schools, community
organizations, local government agencies elucidated by examples from
local livelihood experiences.
• Preparation of realistic and implementable participatory Local
Adaptation Plans for Action.
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18. Cont…
• Creation of a database on climate change impacts.
• Financial and technological support for climate change initiatives,
particularly at the provincial and local levels.
• Disaster risk preparation and mitigation plans at all three levels of
government.
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19. Reference
• UNDP-NP-SDG-Progress-Report
(https://www.np.undp.org/content/nepal/en/home/library/SDG-
Progress-Assessment-Report.html)
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20. THANK YOU
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