A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Thesis (M. Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2020

Nepal is one of the 4th most vulnerable country to climate change. The two line of defense against climate change i.e. Climate change adaptation and Climate change mitigation has various level of synergy with other SDGs. Climate action and sustainable development are essential to be pursued in an integrated and coherent way. This will offer the strongest approach to enable developing countries like Nepal to achieve their objectives efficiently and quickly under the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. SDG 13 policy and action should be guided by their interaction with other SDGs harnessing collaboration between the institution for the implementation of SDGs in an integrated way. Understanding the interlinkages that exist between the Sustainable Development Goals and its respective target may support integrate various sectoral programs and develop crosssectoral policy to harness synergies. Synergy is an interaction between two or more actions, which will direct to an impact greater or less than the sum of individual effects. Hence, synergy can be both positive and negative i.e. trade-off. This study presents an analytical framework to evaluate sectoral linkages and examine potential synergies and trade-offs among Climate goal with various SDGs{u2019} goals and targets. Synergies and trade-offs between climate action (SDG 13) and energy access (SDG7), sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12) and life on land (SDG 15) have been evaluated from the perspective of developing country; Nepal on the basis of historical data for the time period between 1990-2014. The analytical framework includes both qualitative and qualitative methods. Network analysis techniques has been used for exploring the conceptual linkage among different indicators and capturing the targets associated with SDGs which has further been validated by Pairwise Pearson{u2019}s correlation. Expert interview has been carried out to determine the mechanism of the interlinkages between the targets of the goals. Furthermore, Advanced Sustainability Analysis (ASA) developed under the European framework programs has been used for quantifying the synergies and trade-offs among sustainability indicators.