MICROFINANCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: THE CASE STUDY OF ICE STUPAS IN NEPAL

This work examinates adaptation solutions as a strategy to address climate change at the local level. Initially, it investigates in depth how climate change-related impacts are affecting global human rights records, hindering the capacity of countries to reach 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Local adaptation strategies are among the responses that countries have identified to counter the detrimental impacts of climate change. Then, this work will focus on Nepal, analysing its increasing climate change-related challenges and the adaptation solutions that have been identified to counter climate change vulnerability. In fact, climate change is putting at risk the livelihoods of many communities, because of extreme weather events that are occurring in the area. In particular, adaptation measures that foster water management will be examined, as Nepal faces recurring periods of drought and water shortages in the Northern area of the country. The last section of the thesis will focus on the case study of “Ice Stupas”, which are a local adaptative solutions that can help communities to store winter water, to then use it during the driest months. Ice Stupas have been firstly implemented in the region of the Ladakh Valley, India, through a crowdfunding campaign; then, an ice stupa has been constructed in the Mustang District of Nepal, thanks to a Charity’s donation. This thesis hypothesizes the construction of an Ice Stupa in Nepal in the Mustang District, through the adoption of a microfinance-based solution, to help managing water scarcity provoked by climate change’s effects. This case study is particularly relevant to show how adaptation could be linked with microfinance, thus becoming a fundamental tool to tackle the already visible effects of the climate crisis and to deal with a changing climate in the years to come.