The Government of Nepal has recognized climate change adaptation as fundamental to safeguarding vulnerable communities, ecosystems, and relevant climate-sensitive sectors from the impacts of climate change. The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process was initiated in Nepal in September 2015, as mandated by the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at its Sixteenth Session (COP 16) in Cancun in 2010. The NAP will build on the experience of preparing and implementing the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) 2010, and will formulate plans to address the medium-term and long-term adaptation needs of the country.
The key to successful adaptation is to anticipate how the climate will evolve in the future. This report provides medium-term and long-term climate change scenarios for Nepal, which are modelled representations of an evolving climate. The study used select Global Circulation Models (GCMs) from the CMIP5 dataset, which also forms the physical science basis of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The GCMs were selected based on multiple criteria, covering all combinations of cold, warm, dry, and wet conditions, and provide a range of possible changes in the future based on the ensemble and climate change indices.
