Climate Change Adaptation Benefits of Decentralised Renewable Energy Technologies in the Nepali Mountains

Abstract

Nepal is a poor mountainous country with low levels of energy access and high vulnerability to climate change. Difficult geographic terrain, scattered settlements and the lack of physical infrastructure in the Nepali mountains exacerbate challenges in building modern energy infrastructure on the one hand and increase vulnerability on the other. Decentralised Renewable Energy Technologies (DRETs) have the potential to play roles in addressing both the issues of modern energy access and climate change adaptation. However, Nepal’s renewable energy policy is solely guided by the goals of energy access and largely overlooks the climate adaptation potential of renewable energy technologies. In this context, this study examines the climate change adaptation benefits of DRETs in rural mountains of Nepal. The study applies a geographical approach and draws from both social and natural science methodologies to explain local social, technological and environmental interrelationships. The sustainable livelihood approach is integrated with ideas on broadening livelihood resilience to examine the suitability of DRETs as an effective tool for climate change adaptation. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative primary data collected through a questionnaire survey of 331 households, 9 focus group discussions and 20 expert interviews to meet the study objectives. Case studies are drawn from three remote villages in the mountains of Nepal and their application of five commonly used DRETs, namely solar photovoltaics, solar-wind micro-grid, micro-hydro, improved cooking stoves and biogas. The communities in the study sites are experiencing significant climate change. Increasing temperatures, increasing variability in monsoon onset and withdrawal, decline in water availability, increases in insect pests and invasive species, changes in flowering, fruiting and relocation of species, and changes in the frequency of natural hazards were identified as major environmental changes observed in the case study areas. Those environmental changes have a broad range of impacts on local lifestyles, production systems and livelihoods. Local communities are not effectively equipped to deal with such changes, reflecting generally poor adaptive capacities and high levels of vulnerability. DRETs are contributing to reduced climate vulnerability by directly confronting climate risks and by improving socio-economic factors of vulnerability in the case study areas. For example direct adaptation support is offered by solar PV through the operation of early warning system to minimise losses to disasters, by solar-wind micro grid through the powering of electric fans and fridges to manage higher temperatures, and by micro-hydro projects through irrigation to address an increasingly erratic monsoon. DRETs also contribute to improving economic productivity, education and health services, social trust and forest resources in the study areas, which help to strengthen local capacities to adapt to the observed environmental changes. The findings of this study demonstrate that development activities can significantly contribute to climate change adaptation while simultaneously achieving socio-economic improvements. This research advances the concept of sustainable development by highlighting the need to mainstream development with responses to climate change, and demonstrating that DRETs are an effective tool to do so.