The Government of Nepal has constituted the Climate Change Council under the chairmanship of Right Honourable Prime Minister on 23 July 2009. The Council, a high-level coordinating body, will, inter alia,:

1. Provide coordination, guidance and direction for the formulation and implementation of climate change-related policies;
2. Provide guidance for the integration of climate change-related aspects in the long-term policies, perspective plans and programmes;
3. Take necessary measures to make climate change a national development agenda;
4. Initiate and coordinate activities related to additional financial and technical support to climate change-related programme and projects; and
5. Also initiate and coordinate for additional benefit from climate change-related international negotiations and decisions. 

Composition of the Council

As of 15 July 2010, the Council has met four times. The Council has decided its conduct of procedures, need for establishing the Climate Change Management Division in the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, make necessary arrangement for the participation in the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The meeting also decided to maximise the use the status paper prepared for COP 15 during the negotiation. In its fourth meeting, the Council evaluated its activities and achievements of the COP 15 and decided to lunch the Mountain Alliance Initiatives (MAI) to develop as a platform in order ensure that mountain issues and concerns get due attention in the international deliberations, in particular the climate negotiations.

The Government of Nepal has already decided to speed-up the MAI activities and is organizing an International Ministerial Conference of the Mountain Countries on Climate Change in Kathmandu on 4-5 October 2010. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment functions as the secretariat of the Council. The Ministry has the Council Secretariat Section under the Climate Change Management Division to implement activities related to the Council. The MoSTE functions as the secretariat of the Council. The MoSTE has a Council Secretariat Section under its Climate Change Management Division.

22 January 2012