Give more time for climate change

Published in the Daily Graphic on 12/08/2010, pg 46

Story: Matilda Attram
THREE speakers at an environmental symposium on climate change have underscored the need for the media to devote more airtime and editorial pages to issues related to global warming and climate change.
That, they said, was important to create awareness of the phenomena and promote behavioural change.
The speakers were Mr Samuel Anku, the Director for Intersectoral Networks of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Tsetseku Yaw Oppong-Boadi, the Principal Programmes Officer of the Energy Resource Climate Change Unit of the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) and Dr Nicholas Iddi, the National Project Co-ordinator of the Ghana Environmental Conventions Co-ordinating Authority under the MEST.
It was a collaboration between MEST and the EPA and sponsored by Nokia, a mobile phone manufacturing company.
The one-day event was to build the capacity of journalists on issues related to climate change.
In a presentation, Mr Oppong-Boadi pointed out that Ghana, among other developing countries, was affected by the impact of climate change due to some negative human activities in communities.
He stressed that farmers and rural communities required access to information to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
He mentioned the felling of trees without replanting them and water and industrial pollution as some of the activities that contributed to climate change and called on the media to educate the public on the effects of those conducts.
For his part, Mr Anku stated that although scientific evidence proved that climate change was taking place and that human action was responsible for the speed of the changes, there was still a perceived lack of information and data available to journalists.
He said climate change was a relatively new concept within the Ghanaian media and that only few journalists and editors had a good appreciation of the issues involved.
He indicated that due to that, efforts were being made by organisations to promote closer collaboration between researchers and journalists to make existing information available to the media.
In his remarks, Dr Iddi described climate change as a developmental and governance issue which had implications for all sectors of the economy.
He stated that the issue continued to receive and retain the attention of policy makers, since it was recognised as one of the key drivers of development.
According to him, the impact of the phenomenon was projected to be most severe for developing nations, including Ghana, and, therefore, needed careful attention by all.
“The socio-economic implications of climate change are real and conscious efforts should be made to manage them,” Dr Iddi added.
In a statement, the Communications Manager of Nokia, West Africa, Mr Osagie Ogunbor, said the company embarked on a recycling exercise on electronic waste as its contribution to sustain the environment.