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Climate change, a major disaster - Ayittey
Accra, Oct 20, Ghanadot/GNA - Ms Sherry Ayittey, Minister of
Environment, Science and Technology, on Tuesday said climate
change was a silent major disaster affecting Ghanaians and
called on the media to pay more attention to the issues.
She said most people were not able to relate properly with
climate change issues because they appeared abstract though they
were already having a negative impact on development, especially
on the economy.
Ms Ayittey said: "Climate change is a risk to the hard won gains
made by Ghana since independence," at a days seminar with civil
society groups in Accra, ahead of an international meeting on
climate change scheduled for Copenhagen, Denmark in December
this year.
The seminar, the third in a series of climate change advocacy,
is being organised by SEND Ghana, in collaboration with
Christian Aid and the World Wide Fund (WWF).
The seminar dubbed: "Voice and Vision on climate Change", seeks
to provide a broad platform with other stakeholders to share
their perspectives on climate change and its emerging national
response to pave way for post-Copenhagen engagement.
Ms Ayittey said as part of the preparations towards the meeting,
a national climate change programme would be launched in next
month to create greater awareness on the subject and called on
Ghanaians to support the programme.
Millions of people especially in Africa are already suffering
from the effects of climate change, she said, citing examples of
people migrating from the drought and flood hit areas in some
part of the Northern Region.
Ms Ayittey said over 300,000 deaths were recorded annually due
to climate change while over 300 million people were affected
severely by climate change annually.
She said the impact of climate change was indiscriminate and
could affect anybody, emphasizing the need for people to know
the situation to facilitate attitudinal change among them.
For instance Ghana has already lost about 45 percent of her
forest cover, she said and suggested an efficient regulation of
the activities of chain saw operators r Peter Ruskin, British
High Commissioner to Ghana, said climate change was a
development issue and required a fair deal between developing
countries like Ghana and advanced countries like the United
Kingdom.
He explained that fairness meant developing countries should
have a common voice in the mechanism for accessing and
distributing funds.
Mr Ruskin said every country had a part to play in finding
solutions to the climate change, expressing the hope that the
world would find a solution to the phenomenon in Copenhagen.
"This means a big reduction in the UK's emissions, we are
committed to an 80 percent cut by 2050. With the climate change
act, we became the first country in the world to have legally
binding framework for cutting emission and adapting to climate
change," he said.
He said climate change could also affect Ghana's achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) since it could increase
poverty, negatively affect education, women and children and
plunge the whole world into a disaster.
GNA
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