Nepalese Youth Summit on Climate Change

In November, Nepali youth joined in the 350 movement with there first ever Nepalese Youth Summit on climate change. One of their new top goals for their campaigning in Nepal is to get the world back to 350 ppm CO2. Check out some of the action photos attached, and below is the official release from the event:

The Nepalese Youth Summit on Climate Change was organized at Central Horticultural Centre, Kirtipur form 22-24th November 2008 drafted the ever first Youth Declaration on Climate Change in the history of Nepal.

The program is organized by Nepalese Youth for Climate Action (NYCA), Clean Energy Nepal (CEN), and Clean Air Network Nepal (CANN) in Co-ordination with Ministry of Environment Science and technology and Ministry of Youth and Sports in support with WWF Nepal, LI-BIRD, UMN, CCNN and Photo Concern. The main objective of the program is to create unified youth voice on climate change through youth declaration.

Mr. Bharat Basnet, Chairperson of Clean Energy Nepal and Human Right Activist Krishna Pahdi address the opening session at very first day. "Theoretical knowledge on climate change should be materializing to real action to tackle challenges of climate change" said Mr Basnet. Mr Pahadi stressed to declare the Environmental Rights as a fundamental right in upcoming constitution of Nepal.

In the technical session, Gopal Raj Joshi from Winrock International and Raju Laudari from Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) discuss on overall climate science and role of renewable energy in mitigation of climate change as well CDM process. Mr. Joshi said Nepal’s contribution to climate change is very negligible but we are very vulnerable to climate change due to fragile geological condition and lack of adaptation technology. Mr. Laudari spoke on the Clean Development Mechanism and the potential benefits for Nepal through CDM.

Similarly in second day of the summit, Mr Batu Krishna Uprety form Ministry on Environment, Science and Technology (MoEST) said that Nepal is still backward in international negotiation due to lack of experience and unclear vision of Government of Nepal. However, he also focused Nepal can grab the advantage of global Carbon trade through CDM and REED. Mr Bhusan Tuladhar, ENPHO motivated the youth participants for climate action and stressed on the needs of youth leadership to tackle this global crisis.

Similarly, youth participants from diverse field presented their research paper and presentation. In the second half of second day, five working group on different issues discussed on various agendas including Youth empowerment through communication, role of youth in international negotiation, Policy making and awareness generation, and the conclusion of discussion was drafted as declaration.

Supplementary workshop was organized on the last day of summit which finalized the drafted Youth Declaration on Climate Change. The final Declaration will be handed to Honorable Minister Er. Ganesh Shah, Environment Science and Technology.

Please refer http://nyca.com.np/index.php?subj=downloads for declaration.

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