The COP30 Global Climate Action Agenda outcome report, released on 21 November 2025, represents an important turning point in global climate governance. The conference, held in Belém, Brazil, from 10–21 November 2025, brought together world leaders, including Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel.

As the highest decision-making authority under the UNFCCC, the Conference of the Parties (COP) convenes all Parties to review the implementation of the Convention and its related instruments, while also making necessary decisions to ensure effective and efficient execution of climate commitments.

During COP30, Parties assessed progress made under existing climate obligations and introduced more robust frameworks for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. The Climate Action Agenda is organized around six thematic axes: energy and industrial transition; biodiversity and ecosystems; food systems; cities and water resilience; human and social development; and a cross-cutting axis on finance, technology, and capacity-building. Hundreds of voluntary initiatives and coalitions were streamlined into a new “activation cycle” intended to accelerate measurable global climate action.

Axis 5: Fostering Human and Social Development highlights the need for climate strategies to directly enhance human well-being by safeguarding public health, strengthening social protection systems, expanding skills development, and preserving cultural heritage. As climate change intensifies global inequalities-particularly for populations already facing poverty, exclusion, and limited public services-its impacts, including extreme weather events, displacement, rising temperatures, and food insecurity, are weakening the foundations of human development.

COP30 places human-centered climate action at the core of resilience-building. It emphasizes strengthening health systems, expanding social protection mechanisms, investing in green skills, and supporting vulnerable groups. These principles closely align with Nepal’s constitutional guarantees, particularly Article 30, which affirms the right to a clean and healthy environment and mandates measures to prevent environmental harm. Based on the report, several key gap areas for Nepal have been identified. The following major concerns were raised at COP30 under Axis 5 on Fostering Human and Social Development.

Resilient Health Systems

The Belém Health Plan integrates climate science into public health systems through early-warning mechanisms, climate-informed surveillance, and equitable service delivery. Global initiatives, including the Cool Cities Accelerator and the WHO–WMO Climate and Health Joint Programme, demonstrate a global shift toward climate-responsive health governance. Although Nepal has initiated some climate-related health actions, it still lacks dedicated budget lines for climate–health programs and has limited integration of early-warning systems within health services. Strengthening surveillance, ensuring stable climate–health financing, and expanding local capacity remain critical needs.

Climate-Resilient Social Protection and Smallholder Finance

The Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Human-Centered Climate Action-endorsed by 43 countries and the European Union-directly links climate policies to poverty reduction. Global initiatives such as Race to Resilience demonstrate how locally led adaptation has strengthened resilience for more than 437 million people worldwide. In Nepal, however, social protection systems remain only partially responsive to climate shocks. While programs such as the Social Security Fund, disaster relief funds, and poverty alleviation initiatives exist, they lack clear mechanisms for rapid, climate-triggered assistance. Disbursement processes remain slow, and climate index insurance coverage is minimal. Smallholder farmers continue to face limited access to climate finance, and blended finance mechanisms are underdeveloped. Stronger climate and disaster insurance systems are essential to protect vulnerable smallholders.

Green Skills, Jobs, and a Just Transition

The Global Initiative for Jobs and Skills for the New Economy seeks to integrate workforce development into climate strategies, with a particular focus on women, youth, entrepreneurship, and clean-technology innovation. In Nepal, however, training programs are fragmented and uncoordinated, and no national green-skills strategy exists with adequate investment. A structured and well-financed plan for green jobs-featuring sector-specific reskilling and targeted programs for youth and women-is urgently required.

Education, Higher Learning, and Climate Empowerment

Global higher education networks are expanding climate action initiatives, with more than 1,300 universities expected to be engaged by 2027. This international trend aligns with the Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) framework. In Nepal, climate education suffers from inadequate funding and weak integration into the national curriculum, and ACE implementation remains limited. Climate change education should be mainstreamed across school and university levels, supported by dedicated funding and enhanced through international scholarship and exchange opportunities.

Cultural Heritage and Climate Adaptation

An increasing number of countries are integrating cultural heritage into their National Adaptation Plans, while initiatives such as the Heritage Adapts Coalition aim to protect thousands of cultural sites and practices. Although Nepal has taken initial steps to protect its cultural heritage, it lacks dedicated financing and has not yet integrated cultural heritage adaptation into national planning processes. Opportunities remain to elevate Nepal’s cultural heritage concerns on global climate platforms.

Nepal’s Constitution provides a strong legal foundation for implementing COP30 Axis 5, including environmental rights (Article 30), health rights (Article 35), the right to education (Article 31), social security (Article 43), cultural rights (Article 32), and state policies promoting environmental protection and socio-economic equity.

National Context and Priorities in Nepal’s 2025/26 Budget Speech

The 2025/26 budget prioritizes the promotion of agricultural production on fallow lands along major highways, with funding allocated to expand cash crops, livestock, high-value fruits, non-timber forest products, grasses, and agroforestry systems. The budget acknowledges that climate change is increasingly affecting agriculture, water supply, irrigation, and related sectors. It also recognizes challenges such as inadequate digital infrastructure, mismatched labor skills, dependence on foreign workers in construction and industry, and persistently high poverty levels.

To attract youth to agriculture, the government aims to build a comprehensive support ecosystem that includes access to land, inputs, insurance, purchase agreements, and market access. Agricultural research will be made more results-oriented and aligned with climate realities and farming systems, with enhanced private sector participation in seed development and intellectual property registration.

The budget also emphasizes forest conservation and the sustainable use of forest products, ensuring commercial utilization does not compromise biodiversity. Environmental programs will address melting mountains, retreating glaciers, and broader ecosystem degradation. Nepal plans to advocate for climate justice in international forums, improve access to climate finance, implement Sagarmatha Sambaad commitments, and integrate climate adaptation programs at provincial and local levels.

Communities will be encouraged to cultivate and protect fruits, herbs, and high-value plants in community forests and along national highways. A Fruit Forest Program will be implemented in partnership with local communities. Policy guidelines for carbon trading will be developed, and preparations will be made to sell carbon credits internationally at competitive rates through accurate carbon accounting.

Integrated watershed management will be prioritized to sustain water cycles in the Chure and Tarai-Madhesh regions. Programs for wetland and gorge conservation, forest restoration, and groundwater recharge will be implemented, supported by an allocation of NPR 1.69 billion. To address drying water sources caused by climate change and urbanization, initiatives such as reservoir-based drinking water systems, groundwater recharge projects, and the revival of natural springs are included in the budget.

For FY 2025/26, the government has allocated NPR 18.61 billion to the Ministry of Forests and Environment, including NPR 12.9 billion for environment and conservation and NPR 1.69 billion specifically for Chure and Tarai-Madhesh watershed conservation.

Access to Multilateral Climate Funds for Nepal

Multiple multilateral climate funds are available to support climate action, and Nepal is well-positioned to access them. Climate finance encompasses all funding that supports mitigation, adaptation, and loss-and-damage responses at local, national, and international levels. Globally, this financing totaled USD 1.9 trillion in 2023 and is expected to exceed USD 2 trillion in 2024.

Adaptation Fund (AF): Supports social protection programming by requiring project proposals to demonstrate economic and social benefits, particularly for vulnerable communities.

Climate Investment Funds (CIF): Successfully piloted adaptive social protection through the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and has informed the design of the Accelerating Resilience Investments and Innovations for Sustainable Economies (ARISE) program.

Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD): Designed to assist particularly vulnerable developing countries, offering strong potential to support social protection in the aftermath of extreme weather events and slow-onset climate impacts.

Global Environment Facility (GEF): For the first time, it explicitly recognizes social protection in its draft GEF-9 strategy for the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF).

Green Climate Fund (GCF): Mandated to support adaptation and mitigation, and increasingly finances projects using social protection instruments aligned with development goals.

Access to these funds requires proposal submission through accredited entities and is limited to countries recognized as vulnerable under the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement.

Nepal benefits from a strong constitutional framework for environmental and social protection, increasing political commitment to climate-aware budgeting, active engagement with global climate funds, robust community-based natural resource management, and high youth participation in climate initiatives. While significant gaps remain-such as limited climate–health financing, weak early-warning system integration, the absence of a national loss-and-damage facility, fragmented green-skills initiatives, underfunded climate education, and insufficient cultural heritage adaptation-substantial opportunities exist to accelerate progress toward COP30 Axis 5 objectives.

The writer is a practitioner in society and climate justice.