NEED FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW

THE President, John Agyekum Kufuor, yesterday urged developed countries to provide long-term funding and support to address the issue of climate change.
In an address at the latest round of United Nations Climate Change Talks in Accra, the President noted that the capacity of developing countries needed to be strengthened to enable them cope with the effects of climate change.
For many in developing countries, particularly Africa, the threat of climate change is not well appreciated and it appears that very little effort has been made to address that challenge.
Although there may be other factors contributing to this worrying global phenomenon, one of the main causes of climate change has been the high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The high levels of the gases, which include carbon dioxide and methane, are the direct result of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation.
Thus, while the world celebrates an age of industrialisation and urbanisation, the safety valves that would have otherwise addressed the threat of climate change as a result of emissions of high levels of greenhouse gases do not appear to have found practical expression in the development agenda of all countries.
Unfortunately, as the arguments rage on, the impact of climate change that has been seen in droughts, intense heat, unusually high rainfall resulting in floods, and rising sea levels does not seem to be relenting and the outcomes include adverse effects on lives of humans, plants and animals.
The President rightly made reference to the recent global food and energy crises and stressed that the world needed more than rhetoric to address the challenge.
Sometimes, it appears the challenges posed by climate change are remote or alien because most people are oblivious to dangers posed by our collective inaction.
As the experts meet in Accra, the issue starkly stares the world in her face as there is a global challenge to address the harmful climate change, which has serious implications for food production and the generation of energy.
The DAILY GRAPHIC calls on the people who are still unaware of the threats posed by climate change to look up north, where the story is about extreme drought or heavy rainfalls, which cause havoc to life and property.
Our future on earth looks bleak unless governments initiate policies to stem the effects of climate change, while the people demonstrate greater commitment to environmentally friendly ways of human endeavours.
The displacement of some communities in northern Ghana by flood waters is a signal for national action to halt the degradation of the environment.
It is common knowledge that the inability of the international community to act swiftly stands in our way to addressing the challenges of climate change.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is worried that our failure to demand climate justice perpetuates climate change, which engenders suffering caused by the damage we are doing to nature.
The advocacy for climate justice, as presented by Mr Kofi Anann, immediate past Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the first annual meeting of the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva in June, this year, is a wake-up call for action to deal with the social and humanitarian implications of global warming.
Not too long ago, our people ate food grown by themselves but today, because of climate change, most households depend on canned food because of poor yields from exhausted fields.
The DAILY GRAPHIC calls for concerted action now to address the concerns of those affected by climate change.