A Rocha Ghana calls for increased climate change investment
A Rocha Ghana (ARG), an environmental-based NGO, has called for more funding to mitigate climate change.
This, the organisation said, will enhance the country’s adaptive capability and help build resilience for socio-economic development sectors in all sectors of the economy.
Ultimately, investment into climate change actions would avert the continuous rise of temperatures and extreme weather conditions and help the global action to curb climate change.
The NGO pointed out that any delay in action would place an “immeasurable burden on our children and could make Ghana, and Africa at large, uninhabitable due to the extreme heat, as temperatures are rising far faster here than the global average”.
“We need to ensure all investments, public and private, prioritise and enhance our adaptive capacity and help build resilience at the levels of our governance and socio-economic development sectors,” the Deputy National Director of the organisation, Daryl Bosu, said.
“There is still time to reduce the impacts. But we need radical action now, and no more delays,” Mr Bosu, an environmental activist with ARG, in a statement issued on Wednesday, August 18.
According to A Rocha Ghana, the current national and decentralised processes to integrate climate action within nationally determined contributions and medium-term development plans are laudable.
Nonetheless, there is the need to “prioritise investments and implementation beyond planning and excellent documentation. The national processes should endeavour to align biodiversity conservation as a crucial imperative”.
The NGO has also urged the government and private sector players to provide investment that would enable farmers, adapt and build resilience to climate change through training in sustainable agriculture, access to seeds, equipment, services and other inputs.
With urban, rural and coastal areas of the country prone to flooding, storms and sea-level rise, A Rocha Ghana has called for the protection of these resources from threats of climate change.
Specifically, on vegetation, Mr Bosu said, “Ghana’s forests must also be protected. They help communities adapt to climate change, reduce the damaging impacts of storms, stop soil erosion and landslides, provide clean water even when other sources are polluted by floods, keep people cool in extreme heat, strengthen food security, and so much more.”
“The government must do far more to protect and strengthen Ghana’s safety nets, such as food sovereignty, forests and protected areas, natural water resources and biodiversity. The national processes should endeavour to align biodiversity conservation as a crucial imperative,” he added.
UN heightens call for radical actions to mitigate against climate change
The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has cautioned that global temperatures would continue to rise as weather extremes become more intense if no immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are taken.
The UN said it is now irrefutable that the unprecedented warming of the world since industrialisation has been caused by GHGs from human activities.
They are also the main drivers of changes such as increased global precipitation, shrinking glaciers and ice sheets, sea-level rise, and ocean warming and acidification.
The impact of GHGs identified specifically for Africa include increased monsoon rains for West Africa over the mid-to-long term and delays in both their onset and retreat.
In addition, the intensities of rainfall and flooding and droughts are expected to be more severe and frequent across many regions of Africa.
For this reason, the UN has asked policymakers to promote a radical shift towards green development, and the private sector must innovate immediately to support a green trajectory.
READ ALSO: Climate Change: Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Again Break Records