Climate change and climate variability exacerbate the human costs of war. Most research has focused on the negative societal consequences of climate change, and more recently also the negative impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The possible positive impacts of climate change adaptation and mitigation has left a lacuna in research on the social impacts of climate change. In this study I investigate the link between climate change mitigation and building peace: Does climate change mitigation – in this case micro hydropower systems in Nepal – contribute to building peace – measured as the perceived legitimacy of the post-conflict order? Energy supply through micro hydropower systems is crucial for climate mitigation and has become a crucial area for peacebuilding. After 2006, Nepal achieved successful micro hydropower development following a decade long civil war. Two individual cases within Nepal were selected to assess the effects of micro hydropower systems on peacebuilding. The findings are based on newly collected empirical data. National expert, local elite and household interviews were conducted in 2013 in Nepal. The data indicates that there is no direct effect (neither positive nor negative) of climate mitigation on peacebuilding. However, the successful implementation of the micro hydropower project in the two cases in Nepal has actually produced other spaces of legitimate authority and as such constitutes an internal hybrid peace in Nepal in the absence of functioning nation state.