My speech on DFID’s launch of the climate change roadtrip for journos from Nepal, Bangladesh and India…

Honourable Minister of Environment and the Chief Guest Mr. Thakur Prasad Sharma, Honourable Vice-chair of the National Planning Commission Dr. Yubaraj Khatiwada, Your Excellency Ambassador Dr. Andrew Hall, other distinguished speakers, distinguished journalist colleagues Mr. John Vidal and other media friends and colleagues from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and colleagues from DFID, British Embassy and other distinguished invited guests, ladies and gentlemen,

South Asia as we know is a diverse sub-region with diverse environment and geography ranging from the highest point in the world ‘the himalayas’ in Nepal to the low lying points of the rising seas in Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and so on. The countries in South Asia like Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India despite other illustrious histories have hardly a history of polluting the atmosphere that is our global common property. The biggest challenge of the 21st century that is facing us “the climate change” is not a doing of our past in South Asia. Barring our great emerging neighbour India, the other small South Asian countries hardly have a share in polluting the air, atmosphere, our global common property. That’s the good news.

The bad news however is that climate has already changed and in the past few years in the mountains and the coasts we have in the South Asian expanse, we have already been subject and witness to adverse impacts of climate change. The mountain glaciers are melting and the sea levels are rising.

Flies are flying and mosquitoes are buzzing on Everest these days, glaciers have melted and flooded the villages in the mountains, cyclones and floods in the coastal and other low lying areas have displaced people and resulted climate refugees, fisher folks in coastal areas of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have so little to fish, all those stories we have been told and we have told time and again. We have been also told stories about who has contributed to climate change to happen and who can contribute for it to happen less.

And next month in Copenhangen we are close to a global deal that should set the global stage for sharing the burden of climate change fairly, and securing the future of our children.

In South Asia now the stories we would like to hear in and from Copenhagen are of a fair deal of correcting the course of history of our damaged mother earth. The story we would like to hear would have to be fair as because South Asia has poverty and prone to more poverty because of climate change. At the same time South Asia has possibilities for prosperity, with responsibilities to save the Himalayas and the low lying coastal lands, not only for our-selves but for the entire humanity.

We save South Asia we save the world!

 Thankyou!

Are we communicating right on climate change?

With the Conference of Parties or COP 15 scheduled for early December later this year in Copenhagen, in recent past hardly a month has passed without one or the other events related to climate change taking place–whether at the national or international levels. In Kathmandu in the past one week of September that I know of there were two major climate change South Asian gatherings, one of the high level government representatives and the other of the youths. I even had the pleasure of attending a media specific international conference organised by UNESCO titled ‘Broadcast Media and Climate Change: A Public Service Remit’ in Paris from 4-5 September.

All these events on climate change have been organised, one after another, as I understand to make noise and prepare for the lead up to COP 15, which is fine, as there is always a process to an end and many things need to be communicated and decided in COP 15. With the euphoria of the lead up to COP 15 and communicating, however it has become necessary to introspect and ask are we communicating right on climate change? Are we really communicating in the true interest of the communities who are going to be adversely affected by climate change? Or we are just communicating agendas of one or the other vested interest groups?

Somebody I know in the high level inter-governmental conference in Kathmandu quipped nobody is talking about mitigation and adaptation but just the developing countries and developed countries’ stake in the UNFCC (United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change) and Annex 1 which lists the countries who have been identified as high emission countries and need to cut down their emission and pay for it as well. The other said, I have been hearing about glacial lake outburst floods for more than a decade. Glacial lakes have formed and ready to flood. But so little have we walked the talks. And in the international one in Paris many national, regional and international broadcasters pretty excitedly talked about linking local to global issues by broadcasting.

These discourses and debates in such efforts are all fine at its own contexts and for one way flow of information and the ingrained top-down communications of development in the traditional ways we have done and we are doing. Climate change also needs top-down flow of information and communications. The people in general and the communities in the rural areas (including farmers, mountain enterprisers) in particular need to be communicated the information and knowledge about the impacts of climate change so that they have resilience to combat it and adapt themselves. They have to be made aware.

Development is however a process which does not get governed and decided in Nepal or Kathmandu. Development is a long drawn process and extends beyond a local perspective to national, regional and global perspectives. What gets decided in COP 15 is directly or indirectly going to affect development of policies and managing resources for actions on climate change in Nepal. However, in the COP 15, and beyond it, when it boils down to actions, reversing the process we have communicated and making the way we have done development and would need to do combat climate change, calls for two way flow of information and communications. The noise rather I would say the ‘voice’ of the rural communities have to be patiently listened to as they have always been and have had already adapted to climate change since time immemorial. The rural communities with their ingenious and indigenous climate change science need to be assisted to be communicated their mitigation and adaptation knowledge and the practices that can be replicated. Various development players in Nepal need to aid them to communicate. This is the only way we would be communicating right on climate change in our efforts to save ourselves in Nepal and elsewhere.

Note: Links to mainstream publication of this write up.

1. http://www.theasiamediaforum.org/node/3014

2. http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/10/12/news0488.htm