Climate change has always been with us. What is alarming about the Himalayas is the unprecedented rate of change. For most of us living near sea level, these changes are still imperceptible. A change of 1oC in a century might be considered rapid. But Nepal’s Middle Mountains have recently experienced maximum temperature changes of 0.75oC and the High Himal nearly 0.6oC per decade. This is the fast
est rate of change in mankind’s history, and has already brought dramatic changes to the monsoon cycle and seasonal weather patterns. Snow melt and (in some areas) glacier melt are no longer reliable water resources. One example of the way in which climate change affects weather patterns is that for each degree the atmosphere warms it can hold 6% more water. On average Nepal’s rainfall has remained relatively constant over recent years, including years when there have been droughts. This means that when the rainfall comes it is for shorter periods, heavier and more concentrated. Therefore there is less chance for natural aquifers to recharge and dry season groundwater flows are reduced. Droughts followed by heavier rainfall also produce complex geomorphological responses such as mass erosion, flooding and slope failures that put lives and communities at risk. This has severe ecological, social and economic consequences, affecting both the number and type of crops that can be grown. The impacts of climate change fall most heavily upon millions of mountain people, living in subsistence based communities. According to the International Panel for Climate Change, worse is to come. Their predictions include heavier inundations and longer periods of drought for these low latitudes. A child born today will be facing a totally different environment, perhaps 6oC warmer, by the time it reaches 80. Unless he or she is trained to adapt, the future will be extremely bleak. Bridging the gap between science and the community
Many NGOs are already on the ground in Nepal, working at the grassroots level with mountain communities. A number are highly respected and benefit from strong local and regional networks. The Glacier Trust was founded after a period of research and consultation with these NGOs and with Southampton University as to how a relatively small organisation could have most impact in the field of climate change. The conclusion was that direction of community development needs to be fundamentally altered to take account of climate change and that NGOs needed:
(i) to strengthen the scientific base of their programmes, in order to have a robust basis for replicating them on a wider scale. (ii) to build capacity of their officers and local experts, so that programmes can be implemented more effectively in this rapidly changing environment. The Trust’s support enables NGOs to improve their scientific understanding of the problems of climate change, and to improve their capacity to help communities implement solutions. With the help of our partners, we have developed a structured approach the problem which involves both project work and higher education. Please follow the link to our website to see how we approach this extremely complex problem.
