Climate Change

African countries have been advised to act now to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change to forestall the worse decades to come, says the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Jonathan A. Allotey.
He said floods, droughts, rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions could pose a serious threat to the poorest regions in Africa where between 75 and 250 million people were projected to suffer from increased water stress by 2020.
Mr Allotey issued the warning at the launch and signing of an agreement between Ghana and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat to host the next International Conference on Climate Change in Accra next month.
The agreement was signed on behalf of the Ghana Government by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ministries of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment and Foreign Affairs.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei, at the launch said Ghana was fully committed to the global effort to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, and was hopeful that the upcoming meeting would prove to be a significant milestone on the road to achieving the stringent reductions in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
He noted that the Accra Climate Change Conference constituted an integral part of the road map to Copenhagen 2009, and that Ghana was deeply honoured to be actively participating in the process.
The Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, said it was encouraging that the global community had now awaken to the reality that climate change was now the greatest challenge of the 21st century.
That, he added, was because there was now compelling evidence that climate change dictated the path of development now and into the future.
The UNFCCC Representative, Mrs Salwa Dallalah, said the launch of the talks in Accra represented the end of negotiations by the UNFCCC Secretariat towards the Conference in Copenhagen.
She expressed the hope that the delegates attending the Accra Conference would benefit from the warm Ghanaian hospitality during the negotiations.