The Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in collaboration with Abantu For Development and Keep Your Promise Campaign are pushing for a more hands on the deck approach to address climate change impacts.
The group also wants African governments to as a matter of importance honour promises they make during international conferences relative to climate change.
They note that Climate change has emerged as the most complex environmental phenomenon which comes along with unprecedented negative impacts across societies and ecosystems, hence the need for the continent to position itself to enable it to address the negative impacts of climate change.
“Let us all articulate a collective agenda towards ensuring that Africa is well positioned with the requisite and adequate resources to effectively address climate change impacts,” the group said at a press conference in Accra.
These remarks were made at a media engagement organized by the aforementioned organizations in Acrra before the opening of the 28th Conference of Parties(COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The media engagement on the theme: ‘Pre-COP 28: Keep Your Promise Campaign’ was meant to push African governments and climate-minded stakeholders to honour the promises they made during previous climate change Conferences and to ensure the enhancement of effective climate response measures.
It was also to empower the media to enhance advocacy and movement building by civil society, women’s rights organizations, and individuals to drive campaign actions on climate justice.
Speaking at the event, Dr. Peter Dery, Director of Environment at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) said the world was suffering from the negative impacts of climate change because of how the environment was abused for 30 years.
He therefore emphasized a need to put adaptation interventions including mitigating measures in place to minimize the negative impact of climate change.
On her part, , Ms. Hamida Harrison, the Sustainability Manager of Abantu for Development maintained that COP28 affords Africa an opportune entry point to increase advocacy and campaign towards concluding the Global Goal on Adaptation( GGA) which began last year, to ensure that Africa’s vulnerability to climate change is reduced. At the same time, the resilience of its people is strengthened.
Currently ongoing in Dubai, COP28 is where the world is taking stock of progress on the Paris Agreement – the landmark climate treaty concluded in 2015 – and charting a course of action to reduce emissions and protect lives and livelihoods dramatically.
By: Mohammed Suleman/Publicagenda.news
