Ministry of Forests committed to addressing climate change issues

Minister for Forests and Environment Pradeep Yadav has said that his Ministry is committed to addressing the climate change problems.

Addressing the inaugural session of the First Assembly of Climate Action Campaign here today, he said that since becoming the minister he has made decisions on and run various programs for minimizing the climate change and green house gas emission. Minister Yadav added that works have been moved ahead to that end on a war footing.

"We have been working at a war-footing to tackle the problem of climate change and the cooperation of all sides is necessary in this connection," he said. The Minister also on the occasion gave information on other works carried out by the Ministry towards mitigating climate change.

Nepal is a state party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, the Minister said and reiterated that it has kept climate change mitigation as its main priority.

He further said that policies, strategy, laws, regulations and plans on climate change minimisation have been formulated while the National Climate Change Policy, 2019 AD is under implementation.

Stating that the country has adopted the policy of zero emission of Green House Gas by 1988 AD, Minister Yadav informed that works have also been moved ahead toward meeting this target. He also pointed out the need of national and international support for implementing Nepal's the 'ambitious' commitments and programs.

The Forests and Environment Minister expressed regrets that although all the nations came together to addressing the climate change issues and also made various commitments for the same, they have not worked in keeping with these commitments.

"All states are one on tackling the problem related to climate change and they have also expressed commitment to take various measures for mitigation and adaptation. However, this problem is not being handled as per the commitments and this is a matter of concern," he said.

Reminding that a mountainous and least developed country like Nepal is at high risk of adverse impact of climate change, Minister Yadav stressed on the need of the mountainous countries to work together for addressing the problem.

More than 100 environment experts, representatives and youth of several organisations working in the climate change sector from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan are participating in the two-day event.