African countries must enact climate change laws — Experts

Ghana and other African countries have been called upon to enact comprehensive laws to regulate and guide national efforts to address the climate crisis. 

Such a move, in the view of the Africa Coordinator Climate Civic International, Dr Mike David Terungwa, would not only ensure that the climate actions were properly coordinated, but also help to mobilise the needed resources for the implementation of interventions to address the crisis.

Dr Terungwa, who made the call at a side event organised by the Jospong Group of Companies (JGC) at the ongoing 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 19, said it was worrying that out of 54 countries in Africa only three had enacted climate change laws.

"It is only three countries - Kenya, Nigeria and lately, South Africa, that have formulated climate change laws. I know every country has climate change policies and plans but there is the need for conscious efforts to be made to enact laws specifically for climate change to accelerate global efforts to adapt and mitigate the menace," he said.

The panel discussion, which was held on the theme: "Climate action in Africa: leveraging legal frameworks and effective communication", explored how African countries use laws, policies and communication to address the climate crisis. 

Budgeting

Dr Terungwa said in the wake of failed promises by the developed countries to honour their financial pledges to developing countries for climate action, the prudent thing to do was for African countries to be purposeful in allocating national resources to climate change as a priority area.

"We cannot fully rely on the developed countries to finance our activities for addressing climate change; so there must be budgeting for climate action and parliaments in Africa need to budget right while we wait for developed partners," he stressed. 

Concerted effort

For his part, the Director of Climate Vulnerabilities and Adaptation at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, said although the African continent was the least contributor to climate change, African countries were among the worst affected by the negative impact of the global crisis.

He observed that because the African continent, with a population of almost 2 billion, had largely nature-based economies, African countries needed to be proactive in addressing the climate crisis.

"Our economies depend on natural resources, so it is a nature-based economy. All activities revolved around the weather, so we need to take bold steps to tackle the climate crisis," he stressed.

Dr Amoah said climate impacts cut across all sectors and had multiplier effects on all aspects of humanity, so there was the need for coordinated efforts to tackle it.

He said issues of sea erosion, flooding, dry spells, drought, and poor agriculture yields posed serious threats to sustainable development and African countries must tailor their policies towards addressing them. 

Communication

Again, he stressed that because climate change was a complex concept, it was important for communication around it to be targeted and purposeful so that local communities could relate to it.

"There is the need to understand the art and science of climate so that we can do targeted communication. This is because there is a nexus in climate impacts that needs to be properly connected, and communication is important in that regard," he said.

The President of Climate Communications and Local Governance-Africa, Kofi Don-Agor, also said communication was key in disseminating relevant information and policies on climate change.

"We should be able to break down the concepts to the lowest form for people to understand. And that is why we should depart from being overly scientific to segmented communication modules," he said.

Mr Don-Agor suggested that it was important for the conversation on climate change to be conducted in the local languages.

He also said both traditional and social media needed to be leveraged to communicate climate change to the masses effectively.