Floods and droughts are making millions of people in the developing world homeless and exposing them to starvation and disease.
A lot more lives and property are being lost around the world as a result of the impact of extreme whether conditions, which are fostering disasters.
Experts have attributed the trend to climate change, which is caused by human activity that directly or indirectly alters the composition of the global atmosphere.
Activities such as industrialization, land, air and water pollution, burning of fossil fuel, indiscriminate felling of trees in the forest which serves as a carbon sink, as well as other practices, have the tendency to gradually heat up the world.
Sally Biney, Principal Programme Officer at Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency says, “Climate change is a serious issue” but it is the vulnerable people in the developing world who do the least to cause the climate crisis who are suffering.
“There is clear evidence that climate change is a happening factor that we expected.”
Even though all accusing fingers point to the developed world whose lifestyles and advance industrialization have bee identified as the major contribution to the warming of the earth, developing countries are paying the price through deaths, destruction and economic losses.
As the world prepares to converge on Durban, South Africa, for the seventeenth session of the climate change conference, some experts have expressed pessimism of its outcome, saying it may not be different for previous talks.
There are talks of looming obstacles in Durban, which will threaten implementation of the Cancun Agreements, a second commitment period for the Kyoto protocol, and agreement on a mandate for a comprehensive and legally binding agreement after 2012 when the Kyoto protocol expires.
“There is clear uncertainty as to weather the delegates can reach concerted agreements in Durban,” says Dr Seth Osafo, leader of the African group of negotiators in Accra, ahead of the international climate conference.
Every year, there is a conference on climate change attended by world leaders, activists; academia and ministers of environment, and the seventeenth session is slated for Durban, South Africa from November 27 to December 9.
It is expected that this year’s Conference of Parties (COP 17) will come out with concrete commitments and actions to mitigate the effect of climate change.
Global leaders came up with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the objective of stabilizing of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Ghana signed the Convention in 1992 and ratified it in 1995.
The target is to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and since Cop I5 and 16 did not yield the needed results the world wanted, it is expected that Durban will result in modest steps toward a deal to lower emissions
Anything above two degrees Celsius rise in global temperature will potentially decrease water availability, crop yield in Africa by 20 to 30 percent and 5 to 10 percent respectively, and between 20 and 30 million people will be exposed to malaria.
Dr Osafo, a legal advisor who joined negotiators from nearly 200 countries in Durban, South Africa, for the two-week talks, has minimal expectations of major progress toward an agreement that will eventually bind all major economies to emissions caps.
“Will we be able to reach an agreement? Even if we are able, would it be able to enter into force before December 2012, this is not likely and we have to look for other options,” he queried.
Even though he expects a better outcome from Durban, he says, “I am not optimistic about our chances there.”
Negotiators, Dr. Osafo says, may come up with a set of decisions to further the implementation of the convention “but the outcome might be similar with what we got in Cancun”.
For a positive outcome, he thinks it will only be possible “if there is goodwill on the part of all parties, but as it is now, that is not there”.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), which analysed the cost of harm to health and the environment, caused by air pollution in a recent report, notes that air pollution from the 10,000 largest polluting facilities in Europe cost citizens between € 102 and 169 billion in 2009.
Half of the total damage cost, between € 51 and 85 billion, was caused by just 191 facilities.
Industrial facilities covered by the analysis include large power plants, refineries, manufacturing combustion and industrial processes, waste and certain agricultural activities.
Professor Jacqueline McGlade, EEA Executive Director, is quoted as saying, “Our analysis reveals the high cost caused by pollution from power stations and other large industrial plants”.
She made the statement at the launch of the report which revealed the cost of air pollution from industrial facilities in Europe and provided a list of the individual facilities that contribute the most harm.
Leaders at a previous meeting in Copenhagen agreed to set up the green fund, which the developed countries pledged to raise 100 billion by 2010, to support developing countries to undertake adaptation programmes. But the least said about the fund, the better.
Robert Bamfo, head of Climate Change Unit at Ghana’s Forestry Commission, has hopes that the talks in Durban will advance the ongoing negotiation towards a fair, ambitious and legally binding instrument that will help mitigate the impact of climate change.
Ghana has embraced the REDD+ mechanism to reduce emissions by fighting deforestation and conserving carbon stock as well as provide sustainable resources for especially communities near forests.
“The increasing rise in temperature,” Sherry Aryittey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, says, “is a sign that we have to come together to save mother earth.”
She says Ghana will join other African countries to go to the conference with one voice.
She says the target will be to forge ahead for commitments to emit reduction targets to tackle climate change.
“Most countries in Africa are climatically and socially vulnerable. Their capacities to adopt and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change are weak,” says the Minister of Environment.
By Emelia Ennin Abbey
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