By Oforiwa Darko
COP27, comes as leaders and experts have raised increasing alarm that time is running out to avert catastrophic rises in temperature. The fire and brimstone warnings were quite expectant due to increasing impact of Climate Change especially in developing countries.
In Ghana, draughts and floods are destroying especially the crops and harvest of farmers leaving them in miserable conditions. Now, some experts in sub-Saharan Africa say climate change scenarios indicate substantial losses in the production of food staples.
This trend occurs especially in these areas also known as the hot spots, where projected revenue losses due to loss of arable land would amount to 26 percent by 2060.
Following the devastating impact of climate change events and the urgent call for Climate financing, an action plan has been unveiled at the opening of COP 27 which is currently being held at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
The action plan will cost the equivalent of just 50 cents per person per year for the next five years to reach everyone on Earth with early warnings against increasingly extreme and dangerous weather.
United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres who announced the plan at the World Leaders Summit at the UN climate change negotiations, COP27, said that the Executive Action Plan for the “Early Warning For All” initiative calls for initial new targeted investments between 2023 and 2027 of US$ 3.1 billion, a sum which would be dwarfed by the benefits.
This is about 6 percent of the requested US$ 50 billion in adaptation financing. It would cover disaster risk knowledge, observations and forecasting, preparedness and response, and communication of early warnings.
“Ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions are supercharging extreme weather events across the planet. These increasing calamities cost lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage. Three times more people are displaced by climate disasters than war. Half of humanity is already in the danger zone,” said Mr Guterres.
“We must invest equally in adaptation and resilience. That includes the information that allows us to anticipate storms, heatwaves, floods and droughts. To that end, I have called for every person on Earth to be protected by early warning systems within five years, with the priority to support the most vulnerable first. The Executive Action Plan sets out the concrete way forward to achieve this goal.”
The summit’s host, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, told his fellow leaders that Climate change will never stop without their intervention.
“Our time here is limited and we must use every second that we have. Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering’’.
According to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 President, Sameh Hassan Shoukry emphasized that science is there and clearly shows the urgency with which we must act to assist those in need of support to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change.
“The launch of this Executive Action Plan is an important contribution for adaptation and resilience, particularly in Africa, where 60 percent of people are not covered by early warning systems.”
Early warning systems are widely regarded as the “low-hanging fruit” for climate change adaptation because they are a relatively cheap and effective way of protecting people and assets from hazards, including storms, floods, heatwaves and tsunamis to name a few.
The President of Mozambique, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, and a number of Prime ministers and ministers who spoke at the high-level round table pledged their unflinching support for the initiative.
More than 100 world leaders will speak over the next few days at the gathering in Egypt. Much of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters.
