The fight against climate change needs inclusive and context-specific approach

In my everyday encounter with people, many are aware of and feel the daring ramifications of climate change. From the constant rising atmospheric temperature to the rampant changes in weather and rainfall patterns, people of all ages are aware.

What is missing is that most of these people do not actually understand the relationship between the deteriorating climate effects and climate change itself. To some, it is a normal atmospheric change even though they admit the situation keeps getting scarier.

The truth is that climate change affects everybody. This demon is no respecter of persons or countries. Climate change is not gender-neutral. Both men and women feel the impact of climate change differently, largely due to the difference in most roles and responsibilities they play in their everyday lives. It is an established fact that women are more vulnerable to climate especially, the Sub-Saharan African women.

According to ActionAid in 2019, women are affected by climate change in the following ways – increase risk of violence against women and children, increase risk of child marriage, female school dropouts, increased risk of death and injury and affects the availability of food and chances of living income.

Another key point of how climate change affects women is through the growing rates of flooding and drought. Millions of literature abound to support these claims.

In Ghana, gender, age, and sexuality are frequently discounted, resulting in superficial interventions that fail to address the major causes of the problem. To effectively address climate change, it is very important we recognize social structures such as gender. This will help sharpen our desire and quest to develop interventions to tackle climate change.

Women especially, must be placed at the center of major climate interventions. Climate education can best be achieved when the woman factor is considered. In Africa, women are the first and everyday teachers of every society.

Ghana, like many African countries, is making strides toward solving climate change but our approach lacks inclusivity. Climate adaptation measures are basically developed and evaluated on technical effectiveness without much attention to how they stand to impact the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the society these measures are meant for. This approach can only achieve little or no benefit at all to the society. We have the best plans fitted in the wrong approaches.

To be able to tame climate change, it requires science but science that embraces all knowledge and needs of all users of the various adaptation interventions – we need to understand the users of the interventions. Critically understanding users’ needs and preferences is key if we want to achieve effective and sustainable results. A user-centered approach to fighting climate change can aid in increasing engagement and participation at all levels and spheres for both the user and interventions.

One critical need is data. Data is highly a necessity in climate adaptation decisions. Gathering the necessary data for an informed view will help develop interventions that fit into all categories of societal players. It is therefore important to match vulnerabilities and context-specific adaptation measures through the right dataset. Climate change is real, let’s kick it hard!

risarp@gmail.com