Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 11/2009

Even the Himalayas Have Stopped Smiling: Climate Change, Poverty and Adaptation in Nepal

August 2009

Oxfam Publishing

Abstract

This report is released as more than 3.4 million people in Nepal are estimated to require food assistance, due to a combination of natural disasters, including 2008/09’s winter drought - one of the worst in the country’s history. Nepal is seeing an increase in temperature extremes, more intense rainfall and increased unpredictability in weather patterns, including drier winters and delays in the summer monsoons. The changes, partly due to the impact of melting Himalayan glaciers, could also be felt well beyond Nepal’s borders.