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President Mahama promises sustainable funding for climate change

 

Accra, July 22, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday announced that government is exploring ways of carrying out sustainable surveillance on the emergence of climate change and environmental degradation.

He said the surveillance would also be backed by sustainable means of acquiring funding, to propel the policies by mobilizing resources from all the necessary avenues to execute the agenda.

President Mahama said this when he launched the National Climate Change Policy and National Environment Policy in Accra,  as one of the measures Ghana was taking in reaction to the global challenge of climate change and environmental degradation.

The National Climate Change Policy, which has been prepared and designed within the context of national sustainable development, is Ghana's integrated response to climate change, and will provide a clearly defined pathway for dealing with challenges.

The policy would also provide policy vision and objectives and present a greater detail, the initiatives and programmes identified in the form of action programmes for implementation, among others.

The programme was attended by environment and climate change experts, Ministers of State, students and other development partners within and beyond the confines of Ghana.

President Mahama said all aspects of human existence were affected by the climate change and environmental degradation, which government would continue to fight relentlessly, to ensure that poverty, deprivation and hunger were eliminated in the coming years.

The President appealed to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, to play their roles responsibly towards the positive reaction to climate change to change the losses into gains in succeeding years.

He said while executing measures that would stem the tide of climate change, government would also continue its consultations with major stakeholders to achieve the policy objectives and vision subsequently.

Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, Minister for the Environment, Science, Technology and Innovations, said the Climate Change Policy was the output of series of consultations with other global partners and gave the assurance that such partnerships would continue to achieve the development goals.

He said Africa is the most vulnerable in terms of climate change, and the government of Ghana in partnership with other African leaders would liaise on issues bothering on the subject to educate the people to adjust to the new and workable trends to succeed in the fight.

The Minister commended all the experts that handled the issues through multi-sectoral partnership to cabinet and parliamentary approvals and gave the assurance that the document would be strictly adhered to for the achievement of the programme in the country.

Naa Professor John Nabila, President of the National House of Chiefs, who chaired the function, said climate change had manifested in the areas of long heavy rains, dwindling food yields and poor harvest.

He, therefore, tasked all MDA to mainstream the policy document to find lasting solutions to the emerging issue in the country in collaboration with other world agencies and partners.

Mr Claude Maerten, Head of the European Union Delegation in Ghana on behalf of all other development partners pledged their support to Ghana to implement and achieve the objectives in the areas of climate change and environmental challenges.

He called for strong leadership and quality implementations that would help in eliminating the environmental challenges of the country.

GNA