In a recent remark, Prime Minister Dahal stressed that "Nepal has a zilch role in climate crisis". Dahal was speaking with a delegation of parliamentarians from all over the world who had gathered in town to discuss what members of parliament could do to promote sustainable development.

The PM is totally right as the country is very minimally contributing to climate warming. Yet Nepal could have a gigantic role in advocating climate action, but so far it has been "punching" well behind its weight. Instead, the country should look at what even miniscule and yet powerful nations are doing to promote system-wise changes in the way humanity is fighting against climate inaction.

For instance, Barbados, the Caribbean island nation, has been a pioneer in proposing ways in which the international community could unleash billions of dollars in fighting climate warming. The Bridgetown Initiative for Climate, led by the island nation's Prime Minister Mia Mottley, offers a concrete, tangible blueprint to unlock $1 trillion in resources from multilateral financial institutions to developing nations to build their climate resilience.

It is also about, among other things, rethinking the way money is loaned to these same nations, allowing higher levels of flexibility, including a pause on debt repayments so that they can prioritise their adaptation and reconstruction work.

Barbados is not the only small nation at the forefront of climate solutions. Vanuatu, the archipelago in Melanesia, one of the macro regions of the Pacific region, made history in 2022 with the call for a treaty to end fossil fuels, which is most ambitious and provocative.

While Prime Minister Mottley's proposals have been welcomed and mainstreamed in the global discussions and have put real pressure on institutions like the World Bank to step up their games, the idea of a treaty banning fossil fuels is still far from being accepted. Yet business writer Peter Coy recently titled the last issue of his weekly newsletter for the New York Times, "Why Don't We Just Ban Fossil Fuels? This means, even the most daunting propositions like a legal instrument doing away with oil, carbon and gas could, sooner or later, get traction.

If two nations much smaller than Nepal can come up with groundbreaking ideas, why can't Nepal try to come up with something equally ambitious and promising? Instead, every time the Prime Minister opens his mouth to moan about climate warming, it is always the same refrain. For example, in the recent meeting with the parliamentarians from across the world, Dahal "stressed on the implementation of the Green Climate Fund to fulfill the US$ 100 billion climate finance commitment".

But now the international community is working on something even more ambitious, the new collective quantified goal on climate finance, or (NCQG), from a floor of US$ 100 billion per year, which should be finalised before 2025. Can't Nepal take the lead on this complex and daunting file that has been on the negotiation table for years and even the recent COP 28 could not do much about?

What about the negotiations related to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement related to setting the common rules for the creation of a real, interconnected carbon market, going well beyond the current fragmented and isolated experiences so far embraced by a few nations and blocs? Another area where Nepal could take a major role could be the one related to climate education. At the COP 28, a voluntary Common Agenda for Education and Climate Change was announced.

Public and private schools could work together to truly become engines of innovation, real localised mini climate education hubs, centres of excellence where education for sustainable development is taught and mainstreamed within the local communities. Let's not forget that schools could also turbo-power the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, of which Goals No. 13 and 15, the former focused on climate and the latter on biodiversity, are a central part.

At the same time, the COP 28, for the first time, recognised the role of biodiversity preservation and its interlinkages with climate action. The Community Forestry Programme, even if it is not a perfect success story, still represents, in the eyes of the international community, a real achievement by the country. With ongoing attempts at reforming and enhancing the way voluntary carbon credits work, Nepal could become a hot post for international carbon finance.

One thing for sure that the Prime Minister should be aware of is that the country does not lack expertise and know-how in these areas. There are a number of professionals from Nepal who are recognized internationally and know how to formulate ambitious plans who could catch the attention of the international community. The Prime Minister could do a much better job at involving and engaging them, giving them the high, and ambitious, goal of formulating a set of new ideas where Nepal could truly make a difference at the global level. He could bring them for periodic intensive, close doors retreats and enable them to plot together, unconstrained by the career bureaucrats, an ambitious and holistic plan of actions.

At the same time the Ministry of External Affairs should step up its effort in terms of climate and biodiversity diplomacy, identifying the right international forums where the PM can announce what could be known to the world as the Kathmandu Plan on Climate and Biodiversity. Consequentially, the major embassies of Nepal across the planet should also be active in disseminating the plan through engagements with their hosts' civil society and media and through formal bilateral level diplomatic channels.

If Barbados and Vanuatu have shown the way, why can't Nepal do likewise? Hopefully, the PM can untangle this mystery, once for good.

Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and the Good Leadership