Nepal offers an unusually positive example of a poor
country whose strategies for development are simultaneously
addressing climate change. It isn’t immediately obvious
travelling through polluted Kathmandu, but a more careful
look at the country as a whole reveals striking success at
creating an all-renewable electricity system, a growing fleet of
electric vehicles and motorbikes, renewable cooking systems,
and a reforestation programme that is rapidly bringing forests
back all across Nepal.
Given all this, it is accurate to proclaim Nepal as a leader in
the fight against climate change. For a country struggling with
severe poverty and the lingering impacts of the severe 2015
earthquake, it is more than a little admirable how much Nepal
has done already to build a clean energy economy.
Take a look at Nepal’s electricity system. Domestic
generation is 100-percent hydropower-based and therefore
100 -percent renewable. Government incentives for small
and medium hydroelectric power, coupled with availability
of credit from Nepali banks, have encouraged independent
power producers to bring on line hundreds of new megawatts
of hydropower. In addition to having a zero-carbon record,
these new electricity reserves are expected to end the
country’s chronic power shortages and stem the import
of coal-generated power from India starting in 2018.
Private entrepreneurs in Kathmandu have also developed
a network of battery charging stations that successfully
electrify hundreds of tuk-tuks which transport workers
around the Kathmandu Valley. All of the electricity powering
these batteries comes from hydropower facilities, which
means that these vehicles are also zero carbon.
In addition, hundreds of electrified motorbikes are on the
streets of Kathmandu and others cities around the country.Nepal presents a powerful success
story in renewable energy initiatives
Te x t
Michael Northrop & Bikash Pandeythe
Leading
Charge
{ nepal }
environment