Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) Mrs Patricia Appiagyei has pointed out that the magnitude of the threats that climate change poses to the survival of humanity, demands a collective action to address the challenges of keeping global warming below the 2Oc target.

According to her, the fight against climate change which is mainly attributed to man-made activities was not limited to a particular country but rather it cut across borders hence the need for enormous investments to combat it.

Mrs Patricia Appiagyei is confident that adequate mobilization of financial resources through country contributions will help in this fight as a means of capitalisation for the implementation of programmes in the short and medium-term.

The Minister made this disclosure during the Third Ministerial Council meeting of members of the West Africa Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) as well as representatives of the ECOWAS Commission here in Accra under the support of the Ministry of Environment Science Technology and Innovation. Speaking to this reporter Mrs Patricia Appiagyei explained that the conference was held on the theme “Deepening partnership between German and West African Policymakers towards the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 13 on Climate Action”.

"The SDGs are a shared agenda. This means that the level of engagement with varied representatives will determine the extent to which we make progress. It will depend on how well we all ECOWAS, the private sector, the public sector and development partners engage to address our shared vision on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use" she said.

The Member of Parliament for Asokwa constituency whispered that Government of Ghana had established 192, 253, 19 acres of tree plantation and recently employed over 20,000 youth to plant about 10 million tree seedlings with the aim of reducing global warming.

“We have developed a plastic policy that aims to deal with the whole value chain of plastic management including the circular economy; this will provide huge green job opportunities in recycling and waste to plastic technologies,” she added.

The German Federal Minister of Education and Research Mrs Anja Karliczek indicated that WASCAL exists to improve the projection of the impact of climate change on the economic development of the West African sub-region.

"The centre also sought to inform policymakers on land-use policies that would help counter the effects of climate change as well encourage, promote and undertake research at the regional and national levels," She said.

On her part, President of the Council of Ministers of WASCAL Ms Marie Odile Attanasso of Benin urged her colleagues to invest their self personally in the fight against Climate Change and Adapted Land Use.

"I thanked the Federal Republic of Germany for the efforts already made in establishing the WASCAL Centre of Excellence for Capacity Building and Research in the Field of Climate Change," She said.

"This situation requires a strong political decision, which in turn requires great solidarity and frank international collaboration. It is therefore in this sense that ten of our West African States, with the invaluable support of the Federal Republic of Germany, had the foresight to create in February 2012 the West African Centre for Scientific Services on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) to fight Climate Change" she revealed.

Also the Board Chairman of WASCAL, Mr Peter Dery commended staff and management for their pivotal role played to combat climate change through its three key focus areas including Climate Services, Research and Capacity Building.

“Deepening partnership between German and West African Policymakers towards the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 13 is key to West African and even African” he mentioned.

“Working together presents us with the opportunity of regional integration for concerted action and also the opportunity to lip frog technology and financing,” he said.

Among other things, WASCAL is working on more precise rain forecasts for farmers or on finding out how much more water will be needed when the climate warms up by two degrees.

Also present at the third Ministerial Council conference were representatives from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Nigeria and Ghana.