14.GLOBAL WARMING

Although Nepal's share in the global emission of greenhouse gases is almost nil, the consequences of global warming and climate change - receding snowlines, lake bursts and flash floods - threaten to wash away vast areas of the country, including the region that's home to Mount Everest. The meltdown has sent a chill across the Himalayan nation. Over the last couple of years, it has recorded a hazy winter, hotter summer months and frequent landslides, which experts attribute to climatic change. Weathermen believe this could be the harbinger of even more miserable weather to come. "The average temperature in Nepal is rising by 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade," points out a senior official in the climate change section in the Ministry of Population and Environment, Purushottam Kunwar.

As Nepal is home to the mighty Himalayas, global warming has increased the pace of snow melting, which, in turn, has made glacial lakes swell. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) had warned five years ago that 20 big glacial lakes in the country are at risk of floods from glacial lake bursts, which could trigger huge loss of life and property. Different reports suggest the frequency of such bursts has increased in the recent past. "Five glacial lake bursts occurred in Nepal from 1977 to 1998 according to records and satellite imagery," says a climate change officer at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-Nepal Program), Sandeep Chamling Rai. WWF-Nepal acts as a member secretary organization of the Climate Change Network Nepal, which includes a number of domestic and international environmental bodies keeping a watch on global warming and its impact on Nepal.

One of the most startling results of climate change can be seen in the spectacular Tsho Rolpa glacial lake situated in the Rolwaling valley, north of the capital Kathmandu. "The lake had an area of 0.23 sq kilometers in 1950. It has since swollen to 1.7 sq kilometers," says the director general of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Madan Lal Shrestha. UNEP had in the past issued apocalyptic warnings about the likelihood of the lake bursting, triggering flash floods in rivers downstream. It was reported that if it burst, the Tsho Rolpa could affect life and property as far away as 100 kilometers downstream.

Immediately after the UNEP warning, the department started the Tsho Rolpa Risk Reduction Project, with the help of a Dutch agency. The project has siphoned a huge quantity of water and has brought down the water level by 3 meters. According to UNEP, the water level needs to be brought down by at least 20 meters to ensure safety.