The Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), University of Ghana yesterday opened a five-day international conference to harness and share experiences from various actors that would help address issues of climate change in Africa.
Dubbed, the 2nd International Climate Change and Population conference on Africa, it affords various participants across Africa the opportunity to deliberate and bridge the research and policy gaps on climatic change that was lacking in Africa.
The theme for the conference is: “Climate Change and Development at Crossroads- Sharing Lessons” and participants including academia, researchers, civil society actors, politicians, development partners, among others from Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, France and US are attending.
Dr Delali Dovie, Conference Convener, said the conference, which had become an annual event, was to serve as a citadel to discuss African issues that affected African people and also serve as a platform to deliberate on issues “that affected Africans by themselves and come out with their own solutions”.
He said the conference was also to build on the 2012 conference to draw on climate change experiences within coastal zones but with implications for the whole of society and other ecosystems.
Dr Dovie said a communiqué would be issued at the end of the conference to inform policy makers and other actors on the need to act to mitigate climate change.
He also announced that a climatic adaptation fund in Ghana would be initiated from the conference to help gather resources and funds to support local communities that fall under the Climate Change adaptation project.
Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, Minister for Environment, Science Technology and Innovation, said the fact that Africa faces a serious developmental challenge from climate change which was worsened by gaps between science on the one hand, and policy and intervention on the other, called for the need to interact and share lessons.
He said the results of global warming, on the climate in Africa had also been predicted to become more variable, and extreme weather events were expected to be more frequent and severe, coupled with increasing risks of droughts and floods.
The Minister explained that, up to 50 per cent of Africa’s total biodiversity was at risk from reduced habitat while climate related disasters globally were now known to be displacing more people than war “and this is estimated at between 200 million to one billion by year 2050.
He said the existing development challenges of most countries in Africa, such as low GDP per person, widespread endemic poverty, weak institutions, low levels of education, low levels of primary health care and conflicts would undermine efforts to tackle climate change.
He called for strong and proactive policy from researchers and academia that would pave way for the development of strategies like national action plans for adaptation, clean development mechanisms, adaptation financing mechanisms and national green funds to address climate change issues in Africa.
Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, who chaired opening session, said findings and outputs of the conference should contribute to policies that would keep politicians on their toes to implement measures that would solve they society’s problems even after they had left office.
International and local participants would present various papers on climate and population related issues and outline solutions that would help address them.
Source: GNA
