The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has secured a decisive victory with a near two-thirds majority in Nepal’s general elections held earlier this month. This outcome has sparked widespread optimism for a stable, youth-led government that will tackle the most chronic, ingrained challenges, including the economic growth, plaguing our country for over three decades. The party’s manifesto clearly outlines its priorities through specific, quantifiable commitments—creating a targeted number of jobs, generating a set amount of electricity in megawatts, or elevating per capita income to a defined level. These measurable goals enable the formulation of concrete plans and empower citizens to monitor progress and hold the government accountable based on tangible outcomes. However, when it comes to climate change, a severe, existential threat to vulnerable nations like Nepal, the pledge is not as specific.

The escalating impacts of climate change in Nepal are steadily undermining the country’s economic foundation and livelihoods. For ordinary citizens, climate change is a daily reality inflicting severe harm through intensified water scarcity and prolonged droughts, recurrent crop failures due to erratic rainfall and shifting monsoon patterns, widespread loss of livelihoods in agriculture-dependent communities, and increasing displacement from floods, landslides and soil degradation. These issues affect all economic sectors that support livelihoods and employment. Hence, addressing climate change with the same measurable ambition and specificity reserved for economic or infrastructure pledges is vital for any meaningful economic growth.

Climate pledges

The RSP’s election manifesto pledges several strategies to address climate change, including strengthening early warning systems to mitigate disaster risks; promoting resilience-building initiatives; integrating climate adaptation and resilience into national development planning, infrastructure design and budgeting processes; pursuing aggressive climate diplomacy such as advocating for climate justice at international forums to secure access to global funds (including compensation and grants); and elevating Nepal to a proactive leader in global climate negotiations through a dedicated climate diplomacy roadmap.

While these commitments are principled and align with Nepal’s specific vulnerabilities, they demand a great deal of transparency and clarity for the following reasons. Early warning systems, for example, help save lives but aren’t quite effective at saving farmlands and homes, the damage to which runs into the tens of millions of rupees every year. Besides, due to rapidly changing weather patterns during both the monsoon and winter, accurate weather forecasts, essential for an effective early warning system, have become increasingly difficult

Similarly, the phrase ‘resilience-building initiative’ is too broad. To be meaningful, especially in the context of agriculture, adaptation and development, it must specify whose resilience is being built (for example, small farmers, rural communities, specific crops, livestock, market linkages). Against which specific impacts (for example, floods, droughts, insect/pests, and plant-animal diseases)? And at what time of the year? Without such fundamental clarity, building resilience will remain a mere policy fantasy.

The pledge to integrate climate change into national development planning, infrastructure design and budgeting processes is highly commendable as it sets in motion the process of addressing climate change through national systems rather than time-bound, area-specific projects. In fact, Nepal pioneered this approach around 14 years ago by introducing climate budget tagging and mainstreaming efforts in 2012, which several other countries later emulated. However, successive governments failed to sustain attention or improve upon this initiative, allowing these systemic reforms to devolve into a largely mechanical, routine exercise with diminished impacts, especially following the adoption of federalism. Fully operationalising this integration in a true sense, from the national to the subnational levels, by prudently planning available public investment to make development plans climate-resilient, would strengthen Nepal’s capacity to address escalating climate impacts effectively.

On the climate justice front, international processes are not only slow but often uncertain. The Loss and Damage fund itself is a glaring example. Established in 2022, the US’s denial to fund it made it uncertain to begin with; the total pledges so far hover around $786 million, which is woefully inadequate against the escalating scale of need. Expert estimates indicate that developing countries will require a projected $580 billion by 2030 to address loss and damage incurred through climate-induced disasters and degradation. The number of countries qualifying for support continues to rise as the crisis intensifies. For Nepal, this adds to the already existing pressure of competition when applying for funds.

Growing geopolitical rifts

While we express concern over the rapidly escalating threats of climate change, the world at large has entered an uncertain period. Decades’ worth of global efforts and progress in curbing emissions not only slowed because of geopolitical headwinds but were increasingly compounded by deepening global polarisation. This sidelined the needs of developing countries like Nepal by prioritising security over climate cooperation, diverting resources that dampen prospects of finance pledges.

Realistically speaking, we have limited direct leverage to halt most of these impacts as they stem from global temperature rise, a process that requires sustained global efforts to reduce emissions to stabilise and eventually reverse. Current trends indicate the opposite; global temperatures continue to rise unabated, including for unexpected reasons like reduced albedo. Deeply entrenched economic and geopolitical structures continue to diminish the political appetite needed to make international climate negotiations effective.

Given the concerning developments in West Asia since February 28 and the now-exposed faultlines regarding fossil fuel dependence, energy transitions and proposed emissions reductions, this political appetite appears further enfeebled. The strategic position of West Asia, combined with the fallout from the ongoing war in Iran, is going to shape the future of global cooperation and prosperity in ways that we can only scarcely begin to speculate at the moment. It’s expected to severely impact the supply of energy and fertilisers essential to maintain food security. Further, the stable global order that once enabled countries like Nepal to move towards prosperity and development, through foreign aid and cooperation of development partners, may no longer be viable.

The starting point

The emerging global context, juxtaposed with rapidly changing weather systems, underscores the need to focus on pressing, actionable issues concerning the livelihoods of millions of citizens. Water and agriculture, sectors in which we can be effective in adapting to the climate impacts on our own (through the integration of climate change), should be considered for priority actions. After all, what matters most for sustained economic growth is food and water, both of which have been severely impacted by the changing climate. Treating water merely as an auxiliary environmental issue rather than a core strategic resource has undermined the very foundation of resilience.

Hence, the rapid depletion of freshwater sources should rank as one of the most urgent national problems. Elevating water security to the same degree of specificity, ambition and priority for the incoming government as job creation or energy targets will be an excellent starting point. In an era of intensifying climate and geopolitical pressures, safeguarding this most essential resource is not optional but existential.