Just Climate Ghana leads campaigns on climate action

A Social Movement, Just Climate Ghana has called on government, policymakers, Civil Society Organizations, chiefs, MMDAs, the public and book runners of Ghana’s economy to lead advocacy against human activities that cause climate change. According to Just Climate Ghana, apart from intensifying campaigns on climate action, there is urgent need for government to scale up investments in the climate change sector.

Sustainable Development Goal 13 is to limit and adapt to climate change. It is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The official mission statement of this goal is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.

Speaking at the maiden edition of an interactive Facebook live meeting organised by Just Climate Ghana, Assistant Programme Officer at Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Unit and NAP project Assistant Isaac Kwabena Danso urged the public to avoid human activities including the release of carbon emissions and fossil fuels that spark climate change.

In 2019, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed new environmental quality standards in line with international protocols to ensure consumer safety and public health. The said document is a baseline for quality standards development. The new standards was meant to be implemented by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and religious bodies. The standards sought to spell out benchmark for ambient air quality and stationary or point source emissions, noise control, guidelines for measurement of this noise including standards on effluent discharges into the environment. However, there are roadblocks to attempts by the EPA and stakeholders to effectively implement the new standards, limiting the all efforts to combat climate.

It is against this background that the Social Movement, Just Climate Ghana, formed by a group of Development Communication Student in the University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC-GIJ) comprising Managing Campaigner, Lead Campaigner, Campaigner, Project Officers, M&E officer,
Communication officer,
Financial Manager, Administrative staff, and
Volunteers, has launched an urgent campaigns to lead and intensify advocacy on Ghana’s climate action.

The maiden Facebook interactive session delves into topics such as causes, effects of climate change, Ghana’s regulatory, legal framework, current status of climate action and urgent steps to mitigate and combat climate change.

Participants had the opportunity to ask their questions for prompt answers from the Climate Change Expert Isaac Danso who was on top of issues.

Key on the list of activities by the Just Climate Ghana is to intensify climate action-oriented campaigns in various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and websites, with specific focus on the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, release of fossil fuels, depletion of ozone layer, noise pollution to levels aimed at minimising harmful effects on human health whilst mobilising all and sundry to wage the war against climate change.

Apart from that, Just Climate Ghana has also called for a scale up in efforts to minimise factors that fuel global warming as studies reveal that 16% of ozone layer depletion causes 7% reduction in fish yield leading to loss of 6 million tonnes of fish per year, an important component of protein in diets for many people across the world. This is because the production and usage of some imported chemicals lead to radiations and breakdown of the ozone layer amounting to harmful impacts on humans such as blindness, skin cancers, reduction in crop yield and damage to aquatic life.

Contributing to the debate, Just Climate Ghana is advocating awareness creation on implications of ozone destruction. The social movement also wants strict enforcement of clearance procedures at the country’s ports to stop the influx of chemical substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Just Climate Ghana