Ghana cannot ignore impact of climate change - UNDP

Mr Jeremais Blaser, UNDP Deputy Country Director, has said "The increasing incidents of floods in the Northern, Eastern, Central and Volta regions with its devastating effect on life and property are clear demonstration of the fact that temperatures and rainfall patterns have changed with erratic climate in the country.

He said, Ghana cannot ignore the impact of Climate Change any longer and called for a concerted holistic approach to deal with the problem.

“As we look at the northern regions we are concerned that the combined impact of the drought and the floods can make the population even more vulnerable and their chances of making progress towards the MDGs even thinner."

Mr Blaser was speaking at the Capacity Building seminar for High Officers on Climate Change at Akosombo.

The High Level Interaction on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Issues is being attended by Council of State Members, Ministers of States, traditional leaders, Chief Executive Officers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, the Government's Economic Management Team, and Stakeholders in the environmental sector.

The workshop aims at forming partnership among governmental sectors with key environmental groupings as well as prepare economic actors, law makers, and traditional authorities to be advocates of change and make available the necessary resources to protect the country from the imminent dangers of Climate Change.

Mr Blaser said Ghana needs urgent action to restore the livelihood of the severely affected population and pledged the commitment of the UN systems in Ghana to collaborate with government to advance the climate change debate at the regional and sub-regional levels.

Dr Seth Osafo, an International Climate Change Expert, explained that evidence abounds in Ghana that the temperatures in all the ecological zones are rising, whereas rainfall levels have been generally reducing and patterns have increasingly become erratic.

He said the disturbing phenomenon is that Ghana's economy is heavily dependent on climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, tourism and the forest sector.

He said based on a 20-year baseline Climate Change Observation, it is projected that yields of maize and other cereal crops would reduce by seven per cent by 2050 whilst in 2020, our coast lines would have reduced by 465m of seaside land to erosion, resulting in a loss of 1,110sq.km land placing about 132,200 people at risk.

Dr Osafo said that studies indicates that the harsher the climate, the higher the incidence of poverty, therefore, there is a need to properly plan and carefully adopt a development path that ensures climate resilience and integrates climate change adaptation and mitigation measures into all facets of national development planning and budgeting, particularly at the local level.

He, therefore, suggested integration of policies on economic development, agriculture, forestry, water, health, and energy as well as synchronization of efforts from the community levels up to the national level.

He also emphasized the need to intensify the efforts to make national development planning more resilient and climate friendly, ensure a consistent, comprehensive and targeted approach to increasing climate resilience and decreasing vulnerability of the populace.