ECOWAS Sub-Regional Worshop On Climate Change Opens In Accra

A three-day workshop has opened in Accra yesterday in an effort to find solutions to the problems posed by climate change. The workshop is on a regional strategy and action plan to reduce vulnerability to climate change in West Africa.

Scientific evidence is now overwhelming that climate change is the most threatening development issue of our time with serious global risks that demand an urgent global response.

Climate change brings with it sea level rise and rising temperatures that threaten coastal areas and ecosystems, and increased frequency and intensity of droughts, floods and storms, with adverse impacts on society as a whole and economies across the African continent, in general, and the West African sub -region in particular.

The workshop provides a platform for participants to engage in discussions aimed at finalising the climate change response strategies for West Africa and come out with concrete implementable activities, projects and programmes that will address the negative effects of climate change.

In an address to open the workshop, the Deputy Minister for the Environment, Science and Technology, Dr Edward K Omane Boamah disclosed that Ghana is preparing her national climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies as part of the national climate change policy development.

Outlining the interventions which the adaptation and mitigation strategy will address, Dr Boamah said Government will embark on agricultural diversification especially in the area of cocoa production, whereby scientists will be challenged to develop new seeds and seedlings that can adapt to the changes that come with climate change, while early- maturing and drought -resistant genotypes for cereals and root crops will be developed to support small holder farmers, especially women.

According to Dr Boamah, interventions in the area of land management will include soil conservation, improved agricultural practices and biodiversity conservation.

Another adaption and mitigation strategy, the Deputy Minister said, will be directed at coastal zone management which will involve the prevention of coastal erosion, coastal line habitat protection, the protection of historical monuments so as to enhance tourism and the supply of potable water in areas affected by salt water intrusion into their water intake points, while greenhouse gas emissions in the energy, industry, agricultural, forestry and water sectors will also be reduced.

Dr Boamah said the adaptation and mitigation strategies will also focus on human health by reducing the incidence and prevalence of infectious diseases, such as malaria, respiratory tract infections, meningitis (CSM), guinea worm, measles and diarrhoeal diseases.

He said the strategies have the objective of ensuring that climate change is integrated and mainstreamed into the country's national life as well as the district developmental policies, plans and programmes.

The strategies, Dr Boamah said, will assist government to critically examine existing development policies as well as institutional and technical capacity development, with the aim of reducing to the barest minimum the negative impacts of climate change on Ghanaians through appropriate and desirable policy interventions.

In his introductory remarks to open the workshop, the ECOWAS commissioner responsible for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, Fuseini Salifu, said the Accra meeting is a follow-up to the outcome of the Banjul meeting, which enabled the ECOWAS Commission to measure the magnitude of the impact of climate change.