Kathmandu - The Ministry of Forests and Environment has promoted the regular activities held every year in the field of climate change as ‘illusionary’, calling them the achievements of COP 29.

The ministry held a review meeting on Thursday at a five-star hotel in the capital, calling it a COP 29 review, inviting more than half a dozen ministers, including the Prime Minister. In the same meeting, on behalf of the organizers, the Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Deepak Kumar Kharal, described the discussions, meetings, and high-level meetings held at an international forum as achievements rather than concrete achievements. He raised some such issues that are regularly held every year.

About 50 people representing all government agencies from Nepal participated in COP 29, which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan from Kartik 26 to Mangsir 7. Out of these, 31 participated from the Ministry of Forests and Environment alone. Of these, 7 were joint secretaries. The Ministry of Forests team was led by Minister for Forests and Environment, Ain Bahadur Shahi Thakuri. The ministry has not yet made public the exact number of participants, the amount spent, and its source details.

Secretary Dr. Kharal claimed that there were 8 achievements in COP 29 at Thursday's program. Most of the three have already been completed, initiatives have been initiated long ago, and activities that are being held every year have also been included. He claimed that the discussions held at COP have enhanced the capacity of the team representing Nepal.

Dr. Kharal claimed that the Nepali delegation has drawn the attention of the international community to the issue of climate change and played an important role in raising voices about the issues and problems seen in the mountainous region. He described this as a new achievement, even though Nepal has been regularly elected to the board of the Adaptation Fund.

Dr. Kharal had informed Prime Minister Oli and others that two projects of the Global Environment Facility, which had been implemented in Nepal three months ago, had also started from COP 29 and that this was also an important achievement.

Presenting a working paper on the achievements of COP 29, Secretary Dr. Kharal had also described this as an achievement, saying that Nepal had participated in 17 bilateral meetings and was successful in participating in 324 out of 392 discussions.

He claimed that Nepal had strongly raised the issues of the Himalayas and mountain regions. The issue of Nepal raising the issues of the Himalayas and mountain regions in every COP was also described as an achievement in the program. Secretary Dr. Kharal did not mention anything about what decisions were made in favor of Nepal or in favor of the least developed countries by raising this issue.

Secretary Dr. Kharal, who concluded that Nepal should increase its access to the Multilateral Carbon Fund after COP 29, did not discuss anything about why Nepal has been unable to increase its access to this fund so far. He did not even try to answer that.

He did not explain why the Ministry of Forests and Environment, which has been unable to spend loans and grants received in the name of climate change and is sending them back, has not been able to effectively implement the climate finance project so far. However, he pointed out that an efficient and effective mechanism is needed to operate such projects.

Dr. Kharal had said that Nepal raised the issues of climate adaptation, climate finance and justice, and harm reduction at COP 29 and put pressure on the international community to address these issues. In fact, these are the issues that Nepal raises at every COP. He did not provide any information on how the international community addressed these issues and what decisions were made. Similarly, Forest Minister Ain Bahadur Shahi Thakuri had presented the issue listed in the National Nature Conservation Fund Adaptation Fund Implementation ‘Entity’ as a major achievement. However, the work of making the fund a fund mobilization ‘Entity’ has not been done yet. Initiatives for this have been underway for about 6 years.