GHANA PREPARES FOR CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT

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The Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Mrs Sherry Ayittey, has hinted that the country was preparing a strong statement to be delivered to world economic powers on climate change at the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark next month.

The statement to be delivered would position the country to take advantage of the opportunities, strategies and policies the summit would create, to address the challenges climate change pose to all nations, especially developing ones.

Ghana’s message to the world would urge world economic powers and new developing economies such as China and Indian to show more concern about the devastating effect climate change would have on the poor and developing nations.

The Minister made this known as the guest speaker at the 5^th graduation ceremony of 150 past students of the 2006 to 2008 batch of the African University College of Communication which was on the theme “Climate Change: The Role of Communicators in Africa”.

The Copenhagen Summit would gather world leaders to a negotiation table to deliberate on policies and strategies to avert the devastating impact of climate change. As at 12 November, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen had invited 191 world leaders to Copenhagen.

The summit is to take place from 7th to 18th December for Heads of State and Government Leaders and already Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown and US President, Barrack Obama have expressed their interest to attend.

The Minister, in her address, expressed her displeasure with the way some developing nations were handling climate change since it is estimated that Africa would be the most affected continent to suffer from the new phenomenon, although Africa contributes the least to the problem.

“Ironically, industrialized nations spend about US$600 billion on security and military services. When the Developing countries which are the least pollutants need just a fraction of this amount of money to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change”, she lamented.

Mrs. Ayittey vehemently noted that the country was going to seize the moment Copenhagen presents, to deliver an agreement which would address the nations interest in a concrete and timely manner, sets targets for the future and assure the safety of developing and vulnerable states and communities given the signs and the sheer scale of impact the country was already experiencing.

Ghana, like any other developing nation had experienced and continued to feel the impact of climate change in her socio-economic developments. It is believed that the 1983 severe drought which resulted in the occurrence of a nationwide wildfire was the first major sign of climate change or global warming. Subsequently, there was a massive flooding in the Northern, Central and Western Regions in 2007 and recently the resettlement for people of Keta which in all have cost past and the present government to spend billions of cedis to compensate for the huge lost of properties, reclamation and resettlement of affected communities.

Mrs. Ayittey stated that there was the need for the country to incorporate climate change adaptation, mitigation strategies, action plans into various sector and programmes and projects as a dose to immunizing the country against the threats of climate change as well as creating a platform to benefit from climate change adaptation and mitigation funds which had been proposed by developed nations to address climate change challenges.

However, the Minister was quick to state that preparation to avert the challenges climate change pose was a collective responsibility on all citizenry to understand the changing dynamics of the globe and the shift toward finding solutions to climate change. Hence, she urged the 150 graduated students who received Diploma Certificate in Communications and were made up of 55 men and 95 women to step up to the challenging times, “ it is your individual and collective responsibility to educate the entire citizenry on what climate change is and what we can do as a nation to contain its effect”.

She encouraged the media to eschew from sensationalism and dwell on the issues that would help move the country to achieve it targeted goals. It had been predicted that a child born today reaches 50, the world could have warmed by up to 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It would be a world that would be experiencing dramatic change.

Mrs Zita Okaikoi, Minister of Information, who was also a guest speaker, said government was putting a comprehensive and coherent national policy to provide the legal framework around which government was going to use to address any unfortunate situation climate change may cause.