With the constant call on government to take action on climate change, the Young Reporters for Environment Ghana joined the world to create awareness by staging a protest on Friday.
The group, made up of reporters who advocate on environmental issues, marched from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly Head Office to the Ministry of Environment to present their petition to the Minister.
The march is in relation to a worldwide global strike which aims at getting governments to take action on climate.
The National Coordinator for the Young Reporters for Environment Ghana, Ellen Lindsay Awuku told Citi News that protest was to draw the gvoernments attention to threat of climate change.
“The need to send a petition is that currently the whole world is having a very big challenge which is climate change but unfortunately most people don’t know about it. The very effects of climate change affect developing countries like Ghana because we don’t have the resources to mitigate the consequences of climate change. So it is very important that government puts in measures that can help people be aware of the situation urgently,” she said.
The MCE of Accra Mohammed Adjei Sowah who also took part in the demonstration, promised to ensure that the Ministry will take action.
He said, “I encourage each one of us to continue with the action no matter how big or small the procession is. The Ministry of Environment warmly received our petition and we’re working on it. I am going to follow up and I’m going to follow up with all of you over here because each citizen also has a right to demand what is right.”
ActionAid Ghana’s youth training center, Global Platform Ghana, in partnership with the Young Reporters for the Environment and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, gathered youth from across the 16 regions of the country to partake in this demonstration.
Country Director of ActionAid Ghana Sumaila Abdul-Rahman in a statement issued earlier on had called on government to pay heed to the demands of the climate change activists and protect citizens from the effects of climate change.
Climate change
The issue of climate change has been a bother to a number of people including these groups who hope to create a better environment through awareness.
Climate change is the culmination of human activities which leads to the emission of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mostly caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
A recent report published by a leading research body in the continent, Afrobarometer revealed that only 5 out of 10 Ghanaians have heard about climate change. Even with that, just a handful actually understands what the topical issue is.
Over the years, institutions or organizations have ventured into different kinds of projects to tackle the issue of climate change in Ghana and around the world.
We the undersigned youth groups and associates concerned with the unfriendly living conditions caused by climate change, rather than environmental conservation and a climate-smart resilient society espouse that:
- We want the Government of Ghana to recognize that we are at a time of climate emergency.
- We want to call on the leadership and the entire citizenry that it is still within our power to avoid the worst impacts of climate change if only we act urgently for the common global good
- We want a clean energy future, thus reducing net carbon pollution by a greater margin if not preventing it completely and thus, Government must put in measures and policies to reducing emissions where possible to do so.
- We call upon Political and Private sector leaders to ensure we have enough natural landscape to absorb and store climate emission. Our natural resources must be protected for their numerous benefits and not haphazardly exploited in a manner that destroys our socio-ecological integrity and thus contributing to a harmonious environment for all.
- In this regard we call on Government and the entire leadership that the Rosewood resources (which poses to be the new Gold) confiscated by the Forestry Commission of Ghana as speculated in the media should not be burned as it rather hinders climate change mitigation efforts but instead, identify the perpetrators of the crime which is more deterrent to Forestry Commission’s proposition while alternately strengthening institutions and structures to be more proactive than reactive towards climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.
- We, therefore, call upon the entire citizenry of Ghana, most especially the youth to arise and stand for climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives as we perceive this is the surest way to guarantee our future. We charge all youth to be ambassadors and exceptional advocates of climate smart initiatives by being responsible and holding their leaders accountable as we begin to reorient ourselves towards building a more responsible, healthier and climate-smart society for today and the days to come. And as already said, let us not forget that we are the ones, the only ones who have within our power to avoid the worst impacts of climate change if only we act urgently for the common global good today.
- As citizens, not spectators we call on the government of the day to work with the National Climate Change Adaptation strategy and act by all its climate action policies in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
- We ask that Government facilitate the mainstreaming of Climate change as well as disaster risk reduction into national development.
- We ask for a revision of the Ghana Nationally Determined Contribution to increase government actions for adaptation and build the resilience of affected communities and survivors of the effects of climate change in Ghana.
Currently, in Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Ghana committed to take to meet the Paris agreement a total of 31 actions to respond to climate change, out of which 20 actions are for mitigation and 11 actions for adaptation. This means that Government is to take undue responsibility for mitigation rather than adaptation.
- We ask that climate action is prioritized in budgets to secure the funding and implementation of actions for climate change preventing activities. We, therefore, ask for the funding and implementation of actions for climate change adaptation in vulnerable communities in Ghana. For example the sea defense in coastal areas, water harvesting systems, and promoting agroecology rather than industrial agriculture.
- We ask to take action to stop all activities contributing to climate change and promoting sustainable alternatives.
Our house is on fire and must act as if it is.
FACTA NON VERBA- ACTION NOT WORDS