Youth network calls for more investment to fight climate change

The Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND), which comprises young people who are involved in environmental action projects, has called for more investment to fight climate change in the country.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of a two-day workshop in Accra, the Coordinator of SYND, Mr Chibeke Ezekiel, said although there were various finance mechanisms to support climate action in the country, there was still more to be done.

“When it comes to climate change, there are different finance mechanisms under the United Nations framework. We have Liberal Environmental Facility, Adaptation Fund and more recently, the Green Climate Fund.

“These are all financial mechanisms people can apply and pursue climate action. There has also been some support from the private sector as part of the corporate social responsibility. We also have institutions such as Trust Foundation and philanthropists who want to support the climate action,” he stated.

Despite all these financial mechanisms, he said the country had to be more ambitious in raising funds for climate action, with the government leading the way by investing more money into it.

Read: UN focused on bold climate action

Ghana not doing bad

Commenting on how the country was faring with regard to climate change issues, Mr Ezekiel said Ghana was not doing badly although there was still room for improvement.

“As a country, we have made some progress even though there is still room for improvement. We are not doing badly at all and that is evident in the report that is submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) every two years.

“Thankfully, we have the climate change policy in place, we have other documents to support our climate agenda so this is good, but there is always room for improvement so we need to be more ambitious by raising more funds to support the agenda,” he explained.


Causes of climate change

Mr Ezekiel pointed out that one of the major causes of climate change was deforestation, a phenomenon he said the illegal mining menace was worsening.

“The issue of ‘galamsey’ is not only about pollution of water bodies but it also leads to climate change because once we cut down the trees, we are automatically contributing to climate change when we should rather be fighting it.

“We are also looking at the transport sector due to the emissions from the vehicles. One good system that the government introduced was the Aayalolo bus services where people were encouraged to use the bus and park their cars, but that system has not been effective.

“Once the government is able to put that system in place, Ghanaians will be encouraged to use it and this will help in our climate change fight,” he noted.


Role of citizens

The coordinator also indicated that citizens had a major role to play as far as climate change was concerned.

“We have to consciously save energy and try and plant trees in our houses,” he said.

He also noted that the directive from the minister of Lands and Natural Resources for all activities in the country’s forests to cease was a welcome call.

“We hope that this directive will be enforced. All the activities in the forests must be halted so we do due diligence, assess the process, look at the level of damage they have done and be sure that we don’t give permit to someone who will go into the forest and do otherwise as against what has been agreed on,” he stated.


About workshop

Mr Ezekiel said the workshop had two main objectives; one was to build the knowledge base of its members who were young people in climate action and also expose them to the financing mechanisms available to them.

“We want to educate them on what climate finance is, the various mechanisms and then that will inform our advocacy campaign. We want to understand the country’s mechanism, how we raise money to tackle our climate action and how young people can also get involved in the agenda,” he said.