Volta Premier Fm
Action Aid Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has organized a sensitization workshop on climate justice for some selected communities in the Ho Municipality and Adaklu District.
It focused on climate justice and equity, recognizing the responsibility of individual communities to lead rapid climate action, and, by these actions, supporting the country as a whole to cope with climate impacts and transition to greener pathways.
Addressing the participants, Programme Officer in charge of Volta and Oti regions, Foster Adase-Adjei, said despite not being responsible for most of the pollution leading to climate change, poorer countries suffer its most severe impacts, either in terms of extreme weather events or slow-onset impacts like desertification. These effects are likely to become more severe.
Speaking to Global FM News on the sidelines of the event, Mr. Foster Adase-Adjei, said climate justice is a global campaign and so there was the need to replicate same here in our local communities.
“Today’s event is basically meant to create awareness among our people about issues related to climate justice. We believe that climate justice is a global concern and not just limited to our side of the world.
And more so even though we know that much of the effect of climate change being witnessed is largely to be blamed on the advanced countries who are highly industrialized, we as Africans are also not completely innocent, although our contribution to the effects may not be as significant as that of the developed world. So in today’s meeting, we are looking at how best we can contribute to the campaign to sustain the climate.
So we have brought together youth groups, our women groups and some of our men who support women’s activities. Some of these participant are from the Oti region, and so this is more of a regional advocacy platform,” he said.
“The thing is that some of the things we do or activities we engage in, we are unaware of the impact of such things on our climate. So we have invited relevant state agencies like the Department of Food and Agriculture to enlighten our people on some of our farming practices especially that put a strain on our Climate,” he added.
Taking her turn, Ms. Elisabeth Boamah, schooled participants on the need for re-afforestation even in the face of so-called unavailability of land. She averted that according to research, in the next ten years, there will be a drastic reduction Net Primary Production of food crops as a result of negative climate activity.
She recounts the possible effects of climate change on the human population as drought, flood, hurricanes, and all of these, in effect, could lead to extreme hunger and it’s related consequences.
She therefore charged participants to adhere strictly to healthy and environmentally-friendly practices so as to safeguard our climate and by extension, our human race.
“The impact of climatic changes on our health, for instance, could be quite significant. In an event of extreme weather conditions preventing effective farming and food crop production, lack of healthy meals or even balanced diet could affect babies and weaken the immune system of even adults, hence we become easy targets for preventable diseases,” she said.
“Even so, you have to eat well to be able to receive good medical treatment. And so in an event where you don’t have enough to eat, how do you get good medical treatment?” she quizzed.
This project supports interest groups and community leaders to strengthen their response to climate change, facilitating dialogues on climate change preparedness, peer learning exchange with global communities.
