MPs called upon to champion climate change issues
Mr Phil Christensen, Country Director of CARE, Ghana has called on Parliamentarians to champion the course of building a climate resilient development pathway, to create awareness and knowledge in risk management, inclusiveness and support policies.
He said the country needed to adopt Community Based Adaptation (CBA) as the way forward in building a climate flexible society.
Mr Christensen made the call at a day’s capacity building workshop on Climate Change for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment in Accra on Tuesday.
Topics discussed included: Basics of climate change and climate variability, impacts of the vulnerability of climate change, vulnerability of human and natural resources of climate change and Combating Climate Change and its effects.
He said CBA seeks to develop, strengthen the capacity of people and empower them to analyse and manage climate change risk.
“It works across households, local government, national and global levels to achieve concrete improvement in the capacity of people and communities to adapt to climate change,” he added.
CBA is a community led action based on the needs, priorities, traditional knowledge and capacity to empower people within the context of specific climate adaption projects.
Mr Christensen noted that the adaption needed to be integrated into both national level policies and strategies and local government and community plans to impact on the vulnerable in the society.
He said the responsibility to resolve the climate change crisis lies on the door step of developed countries since they are the historical source of emission of greenhouse gases.
He called on the Government to explore from within and mobilise resources to face the devastating effects of climate change.
Mr Raymond Tawiah, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment commended CARE international, a non-governmental organisation for implementing a climate change Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP).
The ALP is aimed at building the capacity of vulnerable households in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to the effects of climate change.
He said parliament would soon scrutinise and approve the 2012 budget and it was only good that the committee on environment was properly equipped with current development on climate change.
Mr Tawiah expressed the hope that members would be well informed and resourced in identifying climate change gaps and also help provide direction.
Source: GNA