Nepal Climate Convergence-2015, a national gathering of climate leaders from different regions of the country, was organized at Kathmandu on 18^th & 19^th November. The convergence was a joint effort of young organizers from different organizations like Digo Bikas Institute, Youth Alliance for Environment (YAE), Car Free Cities, Himalayan Climate Initiative, Nepalese Youth for Climate Action, Jiwanta Nepal, We Inspire Nepal, Beyond 2015-Nepal Hub and YUWA. The event, organized few weeks before the COP21, was mainly focused on Climate Justice, building grass root movement, campaign strategy, Climate negotiations, media outreach, art workshops and community organizing for People?s Climate March. 57 participants from 20 different districts of the country gathered and discussed on organizing ground actions after the convergence. It was my privilege to be a part of this event.

The first day of the program started with a welcome speech by Mr. Darshan Parajuli followed by an energizing ice-breaking session by Mr. Santosh Pandey and Mr. Niraj Kafle, members of organizing team. An exciting way of making introduction was practiced.

As the first presentation of the session, Mr. Sanot Adhikari , President of Youth Alliance for Environment, presented on ?Climate Science and Nepal Context? which was continued by Mrs. Jony Mainali, co-founder of Digo Bikash Institute(DBI). They highlighted the basics of climate change and provided introduction to green house gases and scenario of global warming. Mr. Adhikari stated, ? According to the reports Nepal is the 4^th most vulnerable country with rise of 1.7 ⁰ C from pre-industrial level in Nepal. Mrs. Jony depicted the impacts of changing climate in context of Nepal as the evidence of climate change.

Mr. Avishek Shrestha, Co-founder of DBI, made a reflection about major COPs till date and highlighted the major expectations from COP21 during his presentation. Some funny yet worthy videos were the best part of his session.

The skype webinar with some young leaders from international community was interesting.  Focal Point for UNFCCC from YONGO, Nathan Tharki explained about the climate politics and Climate Justice movement. On next webinar, Liangyi and Renuka from 350.org shared their experiences about working on climate change issues. Although the webinars seem somewhat boring, they were very fruitful one to get ongoing information about climate change in the other parts of the world.

Mr. Joel Crawford, author of Car Fee Cities, presented his views on Repositioning Nepal in Climate Debate. He focused on Transportation System and highlighted about the possible sustainable transport in Nepal. His ideas of Car Free Cities and information about the government policy to build sustainable cities in Mid-hills were the major attraction of his presentation. He emphasized that Sustainable Nepal can be a model for the world.

Sessions from Mr. Saurav Dhakal , Founder of Story Cycle Inc. about ?Digital Story Telling for Climate Campaigns? and Mr. Ramesh Bhusal, Editor of Earth Journalism Network about ?Reporting Climate Cases? were a good source of motivation and encouragement for the young climate campaigners to make their actions heard among the global community through media.

Mr. Alex Jansen from Local Futures and Mr. Shail from the organizing team presented on ?Local Futures and Localization? where they highlighted about the local ways of sustaining environment for future. We also had a group discussion previously on finding our own solutions for the problems like the one we are facing currently(war, blockade,etc). Different innovative ideas were collected from the discussion and pasted in the solution wall.

On a next session, Mr. Manjeet Dhakal from the Climate Negotiating Team provided information about the negotiation process. During his presentation, he focused on what should the COP21 be focused on. He stated that global goal with emission reduction, new and additional financial commitments, transparency of action and support, etc are the major agendas for the COP21 in Paris.

The group discussion of the regional participants was an important part of the convergence. Five different groups were formed on the basis of their region. The groups made discussions about the event, date, venue to organize a post convergence event in their area. Different groups planned for different activities which were mainly focused on People Climate March at different venues on November 28 & 29 with different pre-march activities like documentary screening, art workshop etc and post-march activities like signature collection. The program was ended with the presentation of group discussion followed by a group photo session.

With the end of the convergence, I came up with much understanding of climate change issues, negotiation process and climate campaigning. the convergence provided the opportunity to meet with pioneers of climate change issues in Nepal who have been following COP since many years. But, the only expectation that could not be met by the event is about knowing the government?s preparation for the COP21, which I hope will be met soon.

The convergence was not just about the presentations. We enjoyed watching some of the interesting movies and videos with strong messages for promoting local market and economics rather than globalization. We had several discussions about the campaigning and building leadership. We played several group games to help build a good communication and understanding within a network. The convergence was the best platform to understand the climate change issues and ongoing activities in the global scenario, build a strong network among the climate leaders from the different regions of the country and prepare for ground actions before COP21.