Nepal's participation at the Copenhagen climate summit may get a boost, with the country preparing a status-paper on climate change for the first time.

According to Saturday's eKantipur.com report, the new status-paper stated that major polluting countries should be obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 45 and 85 percent respectively by 2020 and 2050, and that the global temperature rise should not go beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius on average.

The paper also focuses on five thematic fields-mitigation, adaptation, technology development and transfer, financing, and capacity development.

Although Nepal's emissions are negligible, it ranks among the top 14 countries most vulnerable to climate change.

"Developed countries have significantly contributed to global warming but have failed to help vulnerable countries tackle the issue through technological and financial support," secretary at the Ministry of Environment Uday Raj Sharma was quoted by the website as saying.

Another area of focus for Nepal should be the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA), a key-feature for every least developed country to get funds for different adaptation programs.

Bhusan Tuladhar, environment expert, said Nepali delegates must work to pressurize developed countries to help implement the NAPA.

The Adaptation Fund under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has a total fund-base of US$76 million currently, out of which Nepal can get access to at least US$5 million with the implementation of the NAPA.

Experts also said that Nepal must lobby for a simplified procedure to the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) at Copenhagen. The CDMs allow developing countries to be compensated by developed countries to reduce emissions.

Due to the complicated procedure for CDM registration, Nepal has only registered the bio-gas program as a CDM, although there are other potential areas.

"We want a strong legally binding agreement in Copenhagen which would benefit developing countries like Nepal to mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change," said Batu Krishna Uprety, one of the negotiators at Copenhagen and a participant at the previous two climate summits in Bali and Rio de Janeiro.

According to Uprety, Nepal failed to discuss relevant issues at the two summits due to lack of status paper on climate change.

"Nepali delegates failed to raise a common voice that could have strongly pressurized other parties at the meetings due to insufficient homework on climate change," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2009)