3 Climate Change

The defining collective-action problem of the century: greenhouse-gas emissions anywhere altering climate everywhere, with the atmosphere as the classic common-pool resource. The regime:UNFCCC (1992, Rio) — framework and principles (common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities); Kyoto Protocol (1997) — binding developed-country targets,碳 trading mechanisms; Paris Agreement (2015) — universal nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the 1.5–2°C goal, transparency and a global stocktake; Loss and Damage funding arrangements (agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh, 2022) as the climate-justice milestone. Politics: North–South burden- sharing (historical emissions vs. current emitters), the free-rider problem, climate finance pledges vs. delivery, fossil-fuel interests, and the security dimension (climate as threat multiplier — water stress, crop failure, displacement). Nepal's position — the exam's Nepali paragraph: a Least Developed Country, Himalayan country among the most climate-vulnerable (glacial lake outburst floods, erratic monsoon, landslides and drought cycles hitting agriculture and hydropower), a negligible emitter pleading the case of mountain states (the "Sagarmatha Sambaad" dialogue as Nepal's initiative), NDC commitments (net-zero by 2045 announced, conditional on support), and priority claims on adaptation finance and loss-and-damage mechanisms. Frame precisely: mitigation is a global duty; adaptation is Nepal's survival interest.