Are We Serious About Climate Change?

Barely a month ago, some parts of Accra and its surroundings were submerged by floods for almost two days.

Torrential rainfalls came at a time when Ghanaians were not expecting rains of that magnitude.

People living in flood prone areas are used to the perennial flooding, which occurs during the raining season that starts in April and reaches its peak in June-July every year.

Yet, this year, after the usual floods at the expected period, which resulted in the lost of property and goods worth millions of cedis, the rains hit again suddenly in October.

Official figures indicate that the rainfall that flooded parts of Accra and Tema lasted seven hours as it began on Tuesday night October 25, 2011 at about 20:00 hours and ended at 2:100 hours, and resumed at midnight until 06:00 on Wednesday.

Media reports indicated that 14 deaths were recorded, while, apart from the property lost, thousands of people were displaced and had to take refuge with friends in school blocks and places of worship.

“This is the worst floods we have seen,” said Mary Ago, a cloth seller who lost her shop and all its contents.

With tears in her eyes, Madam Ago narrated how her business capital, which included a loan from a bank, was washed away by the floods.

“Because of the coming Christmas, I ordered for extra goods worth GH¢8,000 and I took delivery of it on Monday, the day before the rains,” she relates. “I packed them in my shop and even made some sales on Tuesday, after which I left in the evening for home as usual.”

Though it rained heavily in the night, little did the single mother of two know that her business would be affected, even though she heard on the radio that some places in Accra had been flooded.

The road from her house in Ablekuma to her shop had been rendered impassible as a result of the heavy rains; the residents in that area had virtually been cut off from the city so she had no option than to stay at home.

However, in the early hours of the next day, as she prepared to use an alternative route, which she had been told was a bit better but longer, she was called by some friends and told her shop, a wooden structure at Awoshie, a suburb of Accra, has been washed away by the floods.

“I cried and rushed to the place a quick as I could,” said Madam Ago, adding that her shop was in the vicinity for the past seven years. “I have never seen anything like this before. The rainfall on Tuesday was too much. I have never seen anything like that before.”

The world is experiencing extreme weather conditions and many natural disasters ranging from floods, storms, tsunamis. Meanwhile, there is a scarcity of water as rivers dry up, rainfall patterns change, and deserts spread.

In Ghana most communities near the coast are experiencing rising sea levels and this is resulting in the loss of land.

People in the forest and savannah zone of the country have not been spared. They have been hit by desertification, draughts, influx of pests and disease among others as a result of rising temperature.

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 bad farming practices, industrialization, land, air and water pollution, burning of fossil fuel, indiscriminate falling of trees in the forest which serve as a carbon sink as well as other practices have the tendency to gradually heat up the world.

Yaw Oppong-Baodi, chief programme officer of the Energy Resources and Climate Change Unit of the Environmental Protection Agency, stated that climate change issues are real and taking alarming tolls on both human beings and other forms of life.

Climate change, he said, has a great significance for the sustainable development plans of Ghana as it affects the livelihood of the people.

“It should be seen as a developmental issue for the country,” he said.

Since the trend is caused by the release of greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere the world’s leaders have agreed to reduce the emissions. The goal is to get the world keep the global temperature below a 2°C rise.

In line with this, 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.

“At least two degrees centigrade rise in global temperature would potentially decrease water availability, crop yield in Africa by 20-30 per cent and 5-10 per cent respectively and between 20 and 30 million people would be exposed to malaria,” said Joseph Essando Yedu, a scientist at the Energy Commission.

Though developed countries have been identified as the worst polluters, developing countries have been the hardest hit.

Developing countries are battling with too much or too little rains, which raise concern over food security, water shortage, rising temperatures, rising sea levels and land loss, desertification, and diseases, just to mention a few.

“This is putting the survival of the poor at risk, each passing day,” said Sherry Ayitey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology.

She believes there is the need for the developed countries who have admitted that they should be blamed for climate change to support the vulnerable in developing countries who are suffering as a result of their actions to help minimize the effects.

To reduce vulnerability and impact of climate change people in the developing world have to adapt to new developments and consider alternative livelihoods while they protect the environment. But because they do not have the technology and the financial strength they have to depend on developed countries, which have pledged financial commitments but have not made good their words.

Every year, there is a conference on climate change attended by world leaders, activists; academia and ministers of Environment and the seventeenth session, this year’s would be in Durban, South Africa from November 27 to December 9.

It is expected that this year’s Conference of Parties (COP 17) would come out with concrete commitments and actions to mitigate the effect of climate change.

Ghana would join other African countries to go to the conference with one voice.

Professor Chris Gordon, Director of the Institute of Environment of the University of Ghana, said: “Ghana is good at signing protocols, conventions and rectifying models and so on, but that is not enough.”

He called for concerted action by all the various agencies and government institutions, as well as civil society groups to coordinate programmes and projects relating to climate change mitigation.

“Government needs to be serious about capacity building for climate change. Access to finance go hand-in-hand with capacity building. We can not access the various financing opportunities available for vulnerable countries if we do not have the capacity.”

Yet Daniel Tutu Benefo, senior program officer at the Environmental Protection Agency, thinks: “We must think of homegrown solutions.”

EPA To Sanction Companies

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will soon issue a new regulation that will compel companies that fail to comply with environment laws of the country to pay financial penalties as part of plans to safeguard the environment.

EPA revealed this at a programme to disclose the environmental performance of operators in the mining and manufacturing sector.

Speaking in Accra at the function, Daniel S. Amlalo, Acting Director of the EPA stated that apart from the financial penalty, the Agency is also considering initiating other legal measures.

Known as AKOBEN, the environmental performance rating uses five colours, red, orange, blue, green and gold to indicate a company’s compliance to the environmental requirements of the law.

AKOBEN rating is evaluated by analyzing more than one hundred performance indicators that include qualitative data as well as qualitative and visual information.

The red colour means a company has not fulfilled some legislative instrument requirement, which could create hazardous waste and discharges.

An orange colour stands for a satisfactory rating, which means a company was not able to meet the regulatory standards for conventional pollutants, non-toxics and noise pollution while a blue colour gives a good rating showing adequate compliance with environmental standards.

The maiden edition generated uproar as most of the mining companies that were involved were not happy with their rating.

A total of 50 manufacturing companies and 11 mining companies failed to secure excellent rating.

Only one company, Diamond Cement Limited at Aflao had a green rating while three others, Abosso Goldfields Limited, Damang Mine, Newmont Ghana Gold Limited –Kenyasi and ferro fabric Limited in Tema were graded orange.

However, Ghana Bauxite was the only company that declined to submit its monthly monitoring data to the EPA, which has been described as a serious violation of the national environmental law.

“We have seen significant improvement this year,” said Mr Amlalo, who was optimistic that with AKOBEN rating, the Agency stands a better chance to reduce pollution, increase compliance, reduce environmental risks, improve community relations and enhance public awareness.

In the coming years, he noted, the AKOBEN programme would be expanded to include more companies as well as operators in the hospitality industry and oil distribution companies.

Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, stated that the AKOBEN programme is a vital tool for good environmental governance and sustenance.

“Indeed AKOBEN programme has now emerged as one of the first environmental rating and disclosure initiative in the world that combines environmental performance and corporate social responsibility in one unified rating system.”

The AKOBEN programme, she said, has emerged as an alternative or complementary approach to conventional regulation of pollution in most countries.

Banning Used Fridges: Can Ghana Save Energy

It is amazing how Ghanaians and people in the developing world use items their counterparts in the advanced world discard.

On daily basis, many used items ranging from cloths to furniture flood the Ghanaian market where naive buyers readily topple over each other just to grab an item and part with their hard-earned monies.

Not so long ago, the importation of second-hand panties and other underwear was banned.

Recently the mass importation of used electronic gadgets such as fridges, air-conditions, television sets, radio sets, water heaters, microwave, electric cookers, pressing irons, commuters, washing machines, rice cookers and blenders has attracted the attention of authorities in the energy sector.

Worried about the current trend, the Energy Commission, regulator of the Energy sector, initiated plans to ban the importation of some of these used electronic appliances which are said to consume more electricity than new ones.

The commission explained that though the process to ban the importation of used electronic gadget would be gradual with effect from January, 2013, used refrigerators and air- conditioners would be banned completely from entering the market.

Next in line would be used television (TV) sets and electric irons which would be completely banned in the country.

David Yaw Donkoh, in an interview, said he has been importing second-hand electronic gadgets for the past 10 years and now owns four shops through out the country.

“It is a good business. Not anyone can afford a new gadget which is usually expensive and not durable. Most Ghanaians want quality appliances which they would not spend so much on,” said Mr. Donkoh from one of his shops along the Lapze-Kwashieman road in Accra.

Since news about the proposed ban on importation of fridges and air-conditions broke out, Mr. Donkoh says he has been having sleepless nights.

“I have been thinking about what would happen to my business.”

Bowing his head down as he sits in a sophisticated chair in his shop, he noted “If I do not take care I will go out of business. I must think of selling new items. It will not be easy but everybody will be forced to buy new gadgets since there would be no used ones on the market.”

Dr. Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, Executive Secretary of Energy Commission, explained that some used TV sets with standby mode consume about 10 watts of electricity which is a drain on the country’s energy.

“We, at Energy Commission, together with other stakeholders in the energy sector want Ghana to be free from electronic waste,” he said.

The measures, he explained, would help the nation save energy, noting that “Ghana will not be a dumping ground for second-hand electronic products.”

One of the core functions of the Energy Commission, as stated in Act 541, is to promote energy efficiency.

In line with its mandate, the commission has instituted the energy efficiency and conservation month to be celebrated every year in September.

This year, to address economic and climate change challenge, the commission aims to create the necessary awareness as well as sensitize the public on how to efficiently use energy.

The commission has also called on Parliament to give it more authority to sanction people who import cheap electronic products into the country.

In line with this, the commission has kicked start the implementation of standards and labeling of refrigerating appliances and air-conditioners which when properly enforced would save the country over $100 million and about $52million respectively every year.

The labeled products are expected to promote standards, as it would prescribe minimum energy performance of products.

A special taskforce, constituted by the Energy Commission, will from next month embark on an exercise to confiscate used refrigerators from the market.

Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, said the measure is part of government’s efforts to address global warming and climate change in the country.

She mentioned that the two-year moratorium placed on the Energy Commission’s regulations, 2008 (LI 1932) which prohibited the importation of used refrigeration equipment effective January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012 was in view of petitions and concerns raised by dealers in the trade.

During this period, she said plans were put in place to register and license all traders and importers of used refrigeration equipment after which import quotas would be issued to some selected importers to bring them into the country in controlled quantities until December 31, 2012 when they would be completely banned.

Nonetheless, “We would ensure that the market is not flooded by new inefficient refrigerators after the ban on the importation of the used ones.”

Kofi Agyarko, Principal Programme Officer of Energy Commission, said a research has revealed that obsolete or used gadgets consume more energy.

Most of these used electronic gadgets have been identified as the main cause of fire outbreaks in homes and industries as a result of the high amount of energy they consume and frequent power outages experienced in the country in recent times.

Hannah Immere, a single mother of two, told this paper that she bought her fridge from a second-hand dealer.

“It was very cheap. I have been using it for the past six years and it has never broken done,” said Ms Immere.

She said she has seen dealers off loading used electronic appliances from trucks.

“Some of them are very old. But the sellers refurbished the old and worn out fridges by spraying them and replacing some of the parts to make it look as if they have been slightly used even though they may have outlived the manufactures date,” she observed.

However, Mr. Ayarko advised the public not to consider the beauty of an electric gadget but its energy efficiency ratings. The rating helps buyers to know the amount of current a gadget consumes.

Victor Owusu, Public Affairs Officer, said a resource centre would be established to test the capacity of all new electric gadgets imported into the country to make sure that they have note been used.

There would be swoops to rid the market of such goods.