A double suspension bridge over the Dudh Koshi (a tributary of the
Koshi river) on the way to Namche Bazar, Nepal
(Photo by Robin Lardon/Shutterstock.com).
It is unequivocal that changes in precipitation and temperature patterns are expected due to climate-driven changes, which in turn affect the hydrological regimes of associated river basins.
As reported in IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report Working Group I, global surface temperature was nearly 1 degree Celcius higher during 2001-2020 when compared to 1850-1900 and global average precipitation on land has increased significantly since 1950.
These findings are a cause for concern for Nepal – a country that is mostly-mountainous which extends from the Earth’s highest peak down to the Terai region. But how does climate change impact this landlocked nation’s water resources?
The development and management of water resources projects should focus on climate-resilient infrastructure and nature-based solutions.
Putting things in the national context, studies show that Nepal’s maximum temperatures have increased from 0.06 to 0.12 degrees Celcius in the mountainous areas and 0.03 degrees Celcius per year in the southern plains in the last quarter of the 20th Century.
Likewise, Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment projects mean temperature rise by 0.9-1.1 degrees Celcius between 2016-2035 and 1.3- 1.8 degrees Celcius by 2036-3065 when compared to 1981-2010.
Nepal is expected to get warmer and dryer as its number of rainy days are expected to decrease, but the precipitation intensity of these rainy days are expected to increase in the future.
It will rain less frequent but more intense and this will result in a likely increase in water-related hazards such as floods.
A living example of these climate trends can be witnessed in the Koshi River Basin – one of the largest tributaries of the Ganga River and the largest river basin in Nepal.
Studies report both rising temperatures and precipitation which will most likely follow an increasing trajectory in the basin.
The 2020 International Journal of Climatology published one of my co-authored studies projecting an increase in both the minimum and maximum temperatures in the basin, which means that both winter and monsoon seasons will be warmer.
Specifically, the northern part of the basin (originating in the Northern Himalayan region) is particularly more sensitive to climate change given its snowy and glacier character, where absolute temperatures are expected to rise by 1.2 degrees in Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 1.6 degrees Celsius for RCP8.5 by 2030.
The Upper Koshi River Basin and the major tributaries (Figure by Mishra et al., 2019).
On the other hand, monsoon precipitation is expected to increase for all RCP scenarios; post-monsoon precipitation is also expected to increase in the future, but winter precipitation is projected to decrease.
The pre-monsoon precipitation is also expected to decrease in the coming decades. Based on the ensemble mean of average annual precipitation, Lower Himalaya and High Himalaya regions are sensitive to climate change considering precipitation.
Higher absolute increases in precipitation are expected in the Lower Himalaya region during 2016-2045 (231 mm for climate change scenario RCP4.5 and 270 mm for RCP8.5) and in the High Himalaya region during 2036-2065 (291 mm for RCP4.5 and 419 mm for RCP8.5) and 2071-2100 (391 mm for RCP4.5 and 922 mm for RCP8.5) compared to the base period (1981-2010).
In contrast, Lower Himalaya and High Himalaya regions are sensitive to changes in precipitation in the coming decades.
The spatial and temporal variation in temperature and precipitation will have a direct impact on water resource availability in the rivers and crop irrigation requirements in the region.
In another one of my co-authored studies published in the 2020 International Journal of Water Resources Development, we projected the changes in river water availability in the Koshi River based on the above-mentioned changes in temperature and precipitation for short-term, mid-century, and end-ofcentury periods considering RCPs 4.5 and 8.5.
Within this context, prevailing design considerations for water-related infrastructures such as hydropower dams, bridges, canals, etc., should be reviewed considering climate change impacts on the hydrological regimes of the river systems resulting from changes in precipitation and temperature.
It is also suggested that the development and management of water resources projects should focus on climate-resilient infrastructure and nature-based solutions.
The writer is Joint Secretary (Technical) at Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, Nepal and Project Director of Sikta Irrigation Project.
Dr. Hoesung Lee is Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
ADPC recently held an exclusive ‘Climate Talks’ discussion with this esteemed expert on IPCC’s 6th Assessment Cycle Reports, which range from physical evidence, adaptation and vulnerability, to mitigation of climate change impacts.
The question to lower-income countries would be: ‘How much adaptation is possible?’
You set out on this cycle of reports with the objective of highlighting the consequences of climate change and offering ways to help prevent it. Have you succeeded in reaching those goals so far?
First of all, we need to be realistic about what we have achieved and what we wish to achieve. Our studies and assessments have clearly indicated that we are not on track to limit warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Emissions are now at their highest in human history, and cumulative emissions expected from the existing infrastructure, mostly electricity production, are way over the cumulative emissions permissible to limit warming.
Secondly, to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, global emissions must peak before 2025 and then reduce to about 43 percent of this amount by 2030, relative to 2019 levels.
If we want to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, then by 2030, the rate of reduction should be about 27%. But in both cases, net zero has to be achieved by mid-century for 1.5 and the 2070s for 2 degrees.
These modeled scenarios imply that carbon dioxide removal will be unavoidable to achieve net zero. This is to counter the emissions from the hard-to eliminate sectors such as aviation, agriculture and some industrial processes. We are in a phase of both challenge and opportunities.
This third report highlights the pressing issues that need to be considered while combating climate change. What are the main points that you would like to underline, which require action?
Energy must be transformed from its current carbon-intensive structure to low carbon-footprint structures, which means that, by 2050, we must be able to achieve net zero emissions globally.
That implies that a very fast reduction of annual emissions, by close to 7 percent per year, is needed. This is a necessary pathway that we must embrace to achieve climate stabilization.
You have been the Chair of IPCC for the past 7 years; would it be true to say that collaboration between the authors and contributors is now at its optimum and the message has never been stronger?
Optimum is maybe difficult to define, especially when it deals with the collaboration between the different scientific disciplines, but I want to say this:
Though it is always a challenge to sustain an effective interdisciplinary approach, I found that authors working on the IPCC assessments found a great deal of enthusiasm for the intellectual synergies in this atmosphere and framework of assessing vast literatures.
They indicated a strong desire to understand the horizon as well as the big picture, and we do have a variety of successful examples of such interdisciplinary approaches.
Our assessment reports contain examples of cross-chapter boxes or cross-working group boxes; examples include biodiversity over matters related to economics.
I found that collaboration was coming from among the authors, to improve the integrated natures of these climate change problems and solutions.
If we look back at COP26 in Glasgow, it was dubbed the ‘Conference of Adaptation’ and you have been a great advocate of creating coherence between mitigation and adaptation.
How is IPCC trying to enhance the understanding of their costs and benefits, especially in the context of development?
Adaptation, mitigation, and development are very closely interrelated. Development provides the capacity for adaptation and mitigation, and in turn, adaptation contributes to development, which further provides the capacity for mitigation.
Adaptation costs will be higher when global warming is higher. The best enabler of adaptation is mitigation. Many ecosystem-friendly adaptation measures will be possible only when global warming stays below a certain level.
There is a slight difference between adaptation and mitigation benefits – adaptation benefits can mostly be captured locally, whereas mitigation benefits are globally shared with only some local benefits.
Therefore, action means how one can make infrastructure decisions and investments to increase resilience against climate extremes and rising global temperatures, increasing the speed of transformation towards net zero.
This requires long-term planning and finance roadmaps, and this will only be possible with very strong public and private sector partnerships.
For lower-income countries, would you agree that interactions between nature, climate, and humans also require interactions between mitigation and adaptation?
They apply regardless of income classes. Therefore, the question to lower-income countries would be: ‘how much adaptation is possible?’ given the requirements for countries to accomplish so many other things.
Here I want to emphasize that adaptation is a part of, and a very important element of, a development portfolio. Constraints for adaptation are really the availability of finance.
If we have a development strategy on the basis of ‘business as usual’ climate, then that development will never deliver the desired development goal.
Adaptation, especially in lower-income countries, requires financial assistance from various sources as a way of not only having effective adaptation, but also of achieving development goals.
A number of countries have made pledges to reach net zero and lower emissions, especially through their energy sectors. The world is trying to recover from a pandemic at the same time and there is an energy crisis in Europe.
What does that mean for the commitments of those countries?
Well, that’s a very important question. We need to differentiate between the systemic and transient changes.
We have observed rising and fluctuating oil and gas prices for the last two decades and CO2 intensity and content has decreased globally. For the last 10 years, it has decreased 0.3 percent annually and the energy intensity per unit of GDP produced has also declined.
These two important elements – carbon intensity and energy intensity – declined regardless of fluctuating oil and gas prices. Two years ago, oil prices dropped to about US $40 per barrel and people talked about the demand peaking.
I think the recent incident revealed the vulnerability ingrained in current energy systems, in terms of energy security and global supply chains surrounding the energy supply structure. Current incidents will obviously cause, in my understanding, a systemic change toward a reduced supply chain and more localized production.
Now these changes will be in line with net zero transformation pathways, which means more renewable energy use and more technologies to reduce carbon footprints.
The impact of current incidents on systems and behavioral changes will turn out to be a blip in the journey towards net zero, and recent changes will only reinforce the reason for achieving net zero as soon as possible.
Moving forward, how do you see the role of bioenergy in the context of meeting our climate goals?
And, what are some of the challenges in terms of land use and food security, as well as any other challenges or considerations we should be thinking of?
The biggest challenge for bioenergy is sustainability. When scaled up, there is great concern about how such a strategy will collide with the scarcity of land and water.
It will also collide with the desire to preserve biodiversity. Biotechnology itself has an ingrained risk, and sustainability issues arise from its scaling and cost.
When we look at bioenergy, we need to look at the specific choice from the nexus of energy, water, and land.
Considering the economics of climate change and given the vast population of Asia, is the single biggest hurdle in establishing effective sustainable adaptation measures the funding of these measures?
Funding is the critical element of every activity, regardless of adaptation or mitigation, especially for countries in Asia.
A great deal of climate impacts will be expected to appear in this region in a number of sectoral analyses.
Therefore, it is very important that the public and private sources of capital are mobilized for this region, and I believe that multilateral development banks will have a greater role to play to help with its adaptation funding.
If we are looking for signs of progress in dealing with climate issues, would you say that the advances in technology are offering positive opportunities across sectoral mitigation development?
Definitely, yes. There are generally two types of energy policies – the first one would be so-called ‘technology push’ policies such as R&D support and support for training and development, and there are also ‘demand pull’ policies such as technical standards and taxes.
The purpose of those ‘demand pull’ policies are to create incentives and market opportunities. Also, an important element is the transfer of such technologies to the lower-income countries so that those countries will be able to apply them for better adaptation and mitigation activities.
Technology development has a positive spillover both for domestic and international economies, so it’s a good strategy for the development program as well.
Specifically, this Working Group III Report highlights the importance of digital technologies in contributing to the mitigation of climate change; especially when accompanied by dematerialization and smart supply chain management, we should expect a very large dividend of reduced carbon footprints.
Do low-income Asian countries have the economic and technological capacity to fulfill the requirements of the IPCC?
IPCC only provides the available options and actions that countries should consider when they develop climate-related policies.
I’m sure our report will be beneficial to our member Governments’ decision-making towards a better climate domestically as well as globally.
Adaptation, as I said before, is a very important element for domestic development strategies.
Our Report contains a great deal of technical, economic, and environmental elements which can facilitate very appropriate decision-making processes for our member Governments.
I hope our report will be beneficial and useful to decision-makers around the world.
Your next report will be a synthesis of this recent cycle of reports, but presumably you’re already planning the next cycle.
What can we expect to be your areas of focus?
First, the 6th Assessment Cycle clearly indicates that this increasing trend of urbanization generates both a challenge in terms of mitigating climate change as well as adaptation, but also opportunities.
A lot more scientific assessments need to be undertaken about this increasing trend of urbanization in terms of climate change actions and developing strategies.
Second will be a better understanding of the regional information and the decisions being made by local and sub-national governments, which all require very detailed information about climate extremes and other matters related to climate changes and their abilities.
Therefore, the general direction will require a further understanding of climate issues.
Dr. Hoesung Lee spoke to Vidya Rana, Senior Communications Manager, ADPC.
Kamal Kishore, Member, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), India, is also serving as the Indian Co-Chair of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
ADPC recently held an exclusive ‘Climate Talks’ discussion with this esteemed disaster risk and resilience expert on India’s efforts towards strengthening disaster and climate resilience.
https://youtu.be/A-A7mZFwKTI
Which natural hazards or climate-induced threats have the highest impacts in India?
Let me start with cyclones. We traditionally invest more in cyclone resilience for the eastern coast of India, but we’ve noticed increased cyclone activity on the western coast as well in the last 6 to 7 years.
While we’re not yet sure that this is a long-lasting trend, it has an impact on our resources as we need to expand the same success against cyclones to both coastlines.
The same is the issue with flooding. There have been years when the overall monsoons performance in terms of All India Rainfall Index have been lower then normal, yet some parts of the country experienced extreme floods.
We really have to focus on improving our flood risk management practices, early warning systems, flood control measures, and better land-use planning.
We also have “inter-connected mountain hazards” like glacial lake outbursts which lead to floods, landslides, avalanches, formation of lakes, and flash flooding downstream.
We’re working towards coming up with an integrated approach for monitoring these hazards and taking steps to provide as best an early warning as we can and overall, strengthen systems at the community-level to respond to these warnings and take necessary action.
A lot of these hazards will impact our infrastructure, and India is a country which still has a large infrastructure deficit.
This is why big investments are going into building the resilience of such projects for generations to come, and it is in this context that India has been working with 26 other countries and international organizations to create the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure to advance resilient power systems, water systems, telecommunications, railways, and freight corridors to withstand future climates.
How effective is India in promoting disaster risk reduction?
We’ve had good success in saving more lives by connecting science to society and taking a multi-sectoral approach. For example, we’ve been able to reduce mortalities from heatwaves by 90 percent, but we need to go beyond and reduce other kinds of losses as well.
We have to save lives, but also livelihoods. That requires making our infrastructure services resilient to shocks from natural hazards. We are making sure that power systems don’t go down when cyclones hit or come back on quickly.
There were times when power outages in cyclone-affected areas went on for months, but now some cities having underground cabling and better management systems, that recovery time has reduced to just a few days.
Can you share some experiences in managing disasters and climate change during COVID-19?
It’s been a challenging time! We’ve had five cyclones during the pandemic on the eastern and western coasts.
The National Disaster Risk Force (NDRF) had to not only protect people affected by cyclones, but also themselves from health risks. Around 100 NDRF members tested positive, but luckily, they all recovered in good time.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were redrafted, protective gear was distributed and evacuation procedures were revised to minimize the risk of transmission. Once vaccines were distributed, NDRF members were prioritized.
One key lesson is that SOPs cannot be frozen in time, they need to continually evolve to respond to new risks that become known, otherwise they will become outdated and ineffective.
Given India’s high population, what are the roles of local governments and communities?
They shouldn’t only participate; they have to lead. Communities know how to respond to an early warning in an organized fashion.
When it comes to cyclone shelters, the story to be told is that these shelters are multi-purpose and they’re managed by communities themselves.
If the Government is the only one managing it, then it is very possible that the cyclone shelter is either not available or not in a good condition.
If it is managed in the community as part of their daily lives, they will have their own organization around it to ensure that the needs of women, children, old people, etc., are properly met during evacuation.
How is the Government ensuring access to disaster risk financing?
The Finance Commission, constituted every five years, looks at how central revenues are distributed and one of its thematic areas is disaster risk management.
From this Commission onwards, India has predictable finance that covers the entire spectrum of disaster risk management activities—there are resources allocated to response, recovery and preparedness and capacity building on the one hand, and mitigation on the other.
The resources we have from these dedicated windows will be able to catalyze additional financing within the development sectors themselves.
Turning policies into action is very challenging, however, so I hope that in a few years we can measure our success not by the amount of money we spent, but rather the outcomes we have achieved in risk reduction.
Kamal spoke to Ms. Vidya Rana, Senior Communications Manager, ADPC.
Divided by geographic boundaries, over 1.9 billion people living in South Asian countries share mountains, rivers, oceans, energy sources as well as weather and vulnerabilities associated with climate change. Therefore, cooperation across borders is critical to meeting the challenges unleashed by the vagaries of weather.
The development gains in South Asia are already in peril due to the increasing frequency and intensity of floods, cold and heat waves, droughts, wind storms, and cyclones. Approximately 17.5 million people across South Asia have been affected by monsoon flooding in 2020 amid the COVID-19 health crisis.
The World Bank estimated that the region has lost US$127 billion in damages to 1,000 climate-induced disasters between 1990 and 2019.”Adaptation is the only effective option to manage the inevitable impacts of climate change that mitigation cannot reduce,” an analysis of South Asia specific findings from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) argues. The IPCC describes adaptation as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects”.
South Asian countries have been making great strides in developing climate change policies, national adaptation plans, nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement, leveraging innovative solutions, and exploring climate financing. Bangladesh, for example, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), is spending US$1 billion per year for climate change adaptation, which is around 6-7% of its annual budget.
However, the adaptation finance gap, as well as the lack of coherent policies, robust institutional setup, and limited opportunities for exchanging regional data, are some of the key challenges South Asian countries face to becoming resilient to climate change. In addition, the region’s dependency on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, natural resources, and environmental security requires regional collaboration to accelerate sector-specific adaptation to changing climate.
Given the geo-political situation of the region, an enabling environment needs to be created to foster cooperation and knowledge-sharing. A regional approach to reduce climate change impacts allows for a common baseline of data, information, and knowledge from which country-specific resilience and adaptation policies can be developed.
In response to these challenges, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) has initiated the implementation of a World Bank-funded project, “Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CARE) for South Asia”. The project will support regional collaboration, introduce innovative solutions, and foster the knowledge and technology required to scale up climate adaptation action, policies, and investments in agriculture, water resources management and road infrastructure.
Facilitating cooperation between South Asian countries is expected to reduce the transboundary impacts of climate change and to pool resources to meet common challenges.
The CARE for South Asia project aims to create an enabling environment for climate resilience by improving the availability of regional data and knowledge, developing guidelines, tools, and capacities, and promoting climate-resilient decisions, policies, and investments across key sectors.
The initiative is expected to improve the technical capacities of institutions in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan and provide support to policy and investment interventions, climate-risk management solutions, and national-level sectoral Decision Support Systems (DSS) for climate resilience.
The project recognizes the need for an effective adaptation planning across key sectors─ climate-smart agriculture, integrated water resources management, road infrastructure, and climate finance and planning including finance and planning for climate-informed macro-level analysis, modeling, and climate-informed fiscal risk management.
It will also help countries access international climate finance, including support accreditation processes for national/sub-national entities to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
In addition, the CARE for South Asia project will promote innovation and adoption of disruptive technology by awarding grants to eligible and qualifying innovators.
The five-year initiative is being jointly implemented by ADPC and the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES) with support from the World Bank.
