Global warming is the greatest crisis faced collectively by humankind; and unlike other crisis it is global in nature and threatens the very survival of civilization.

Although natural scientists have pondered the question of global warming for a century, only in 1979, the World Climate Conference identified

the effects from accumulation of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. That deserves the most urgent international attention in the following words:

the long continued reliance of society on fossil fuels as a principal energy source of the future, along with continued deforestation, is seen as likely to result in massive atmospheric carbon-dioxide increases in the future decades and that may result in significant and possibly major long-term changes of global scale climate.

Then the WMO/UNEP scientific conference at Villiach, Austria in 1980 and Villiach-Bellagio (Italy) meting of 1987 both expressed the extent of consensus that the warming will proceed rapidly and will present a serious threat to human race. Following the conference several meetings in the past discussed the potential effects as well as policies to prevent mitigate and adapt to global warming.

The first and most significant pronouncement in dealing with global warming and climate change

emanated from Toronto conference on “the changing atmosphere: implications to global security”

in June 1988.

The conference recognized that no single international organization, country or individual can tackle this in isolation and called on all to take specific actions to reduce the impending crisis caused by the pollution of the atmosphere and to work with urgency towards an action plan for the protection of the atmosphere.

In December 1988 the general assembly of the United Nations deliberated the agenda items on

the conservation of climate as part of common heritage of mankind and adopted a resolution on the protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind. The resolution recognized that climate change is a common concern of mankind and requested immediate action.

A big conference was organized in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 with a goal to establish an ambitious global climate agreement for the period from 2012 when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires. However, a binding agreement for the post-Kyoto period did not arise from the meeting. The conference only set a commitment to limit global warming to two degree Celsius, but did not spell out the important stepping stones for global emission target for 2020 or 2050. European Union has indicated that a level lower than 550 part per million (PPM) of carbon-dioxide should guide global limitation and reduction efforts, as current global concentration is about 388 PPM. It is mentioned in IPCC report that for concentration to be stabilized about 550 PPM global emission need

to be reduced by 60% or even 70% during the 22 century. The challenge of meeting this level of reduction cannot be over stated as this will require a major transformation in the generation and consumption of energy.

Thus, the Copenhagen conference of climate change failed in addressing some of the key agendas on climate change despite the mounting pressure from top leaders and wide publicity generated by the media. Also it failed to address agendas raised by the poor and vulnerable population of the world.

However, that rich countries pledged 30 billion dollars in fast track finance for the period 2010-2012 to the poor countries to shore up their defenses against climate change is a significant outcome of the conference.

Nepal as a country with fragile eco-system could face some inter-annual, decadal and continental impact of climate change. These could be in terms of variations in the quality of successive rainy seasons, occurrence of draughts and floods and impacts on agriculture production and bio-diversity conservation.

The likely impacts of climate change that could be seriously felt in the Himalayas and middle mountains would be in terms of snow melting, change in rainfall patterns, increased in flood frequency, vegetation destruction, and outbreak of pest diseases etc in the years to come.

Even two degrees rise in temperature could lead in the retreat of glaciers by 300m causing the loss of 40 per cent of the total glaciated areas of Nepal.

Hence, Nepal being one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change had particular interest in the outcome of the conference where it raised the above mentioned issues along with the suggestion to reduce the global temperature by 1.5 degree Celsius controlling the emissions of carbon in the atmosphere. Though the conference failed to address the problems of poor developing countries, the issues raised by Nepal got due attention in the conference.

Prof. Dr. Upadhyay is with Central Department of Environmental Science, TU