UN Calls for Urgent Action on Climate Change

Increasing and intense heat waves, severe storms, erratic rainfall patterns and sea level rise, are some of the climate change related events that are affecting every sector of development including agriculture and food production, water, forestry and wildlife, health, energy and transportation.  Experts agree that climate change is now a development issue, because it encompasses the economy, health, national security, food security, land use and natural resources exploitation, energy, finance and has implications for poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihoods.

Therefore, the international community has for over 30 years now been adopting measures to either mitigate or adapt to the phenomenon. The Untied Nations (UN) for example has been using the to draw global attention to climate change and its related issues.  This year for instance, the UN has used some of the annual celebration of “Specially Designated Days” – World Meteorological Day (March 23^rd), International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22^nd), and World Environment Day (June 5^th) – to draw attention to different aspects of climate change that require urgent attention.

World Meteorological Day celebration was on “weather and climate: engaging the youth.” It focused on encouraging young people to learn more about the weather and climate system, and contribute to action on climate change.  The youth was the focus because they will benefit from the dramatic advances being made to understand and forecast the earth’s weather and climate. At the same time, most of them will live into the second half of this century and experience the increasing impacts of global warming.

Both, the International Day for Biological Diversity and World Environment Day, served to raise awareness of the threat of extinction facing island biodiversity as a result of climate change events such as rising sea levels among other things.

Benefits of Biodiversity

Generally, biodiversity support the delivery of a range of ecosystem services including clean water, soil fertility and enhancing agricultural productivity. Research findings on the contribution of biodiversity to poverty alleviation, indicate that biodiversity provides the poor with a form of cost effective and readily accessible insurance against risk, particularly food security risks, risk from environmental hazards and health risks.

Islands constitute less than 5% of the Earth's landmass yet provide habitat for 20% of all bird, reptile and plant species. Islands harbour more than 50% of the world's known marine biodiversity, seven of the world's 10 coral reef hotspots and 10 of its 34 conservation hotspots. Research indicates that many island species on land and sea are found nowhere else on earth.  Scientists consider these island biodiversity resources as “legacies of a unique evolutionary heritage, they hold the promise of future discoveries from medicines and foods to biofuels.”

According to the UN, biodiversity is integral to the subsistence, income, well-being and cultural identity of the about 63 million island dwellers around the world.  Half of the world’s marine resources lie in island waters, while biodiversity-based industries including tourism and fisheries account for more than half the gross domestic product (GDP) of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).  Coral reefs alone are said to provide an estimated $375 billion annual returns in goods and services.  SIDS includes Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Climate Change and Island Biodiversity

Yet the biodiversity of these islands is at risk. Due to the vulnerability of their endemic biodiversity and their intense human use, islands have higher extinction rates. For example, research findings indicate that 64% of all recorded extinctions in recent human history happened on islands. Extinction rates for mammals are 177 times higher in island ecosystems than the average globally.

In his message to commemorate Biodiversity Day, UN Secretary Genera,l Ban Ki Moon, commended SIDS for demonstrating a growing understanding of the links between healthy ecosystems and human well-being, as a way of building their resilience in the face of growing threats from sea level rise. He urged nations to make a commitment “to adopting, adapting and scaling up best practices, so we can protect fragile ecosystems for the benefit of all the islanders and indeed people everywhere who depend on them.”

In her message for World Environment Day, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Monique Barbut noted that “often, the loss of territory, of key sources of economic development and growth or of livelihoods are triggers of political turmoil and instability. These challenges are daily realities for the SIDS as sea-level rise, and more powerful cyclones and rainfall continually damage their land and fresh water sources,” adding, “SIDs are doing what they can to avoid internal turmoil by acting on soil erosion, which is silting the coasts, destroying coral and causing fish to retreat deeper into the ocean…”

Ms. Barbut said the world is better off environmentally today, and will be into the future, because SIDS took a moral stand on climate change. “They have been firm and persistent about taking action to avoid the harm climate change poses for everyone, including present and future generations. They have called on big nations to lead by action and broken rank with the groups they would normally align with for support in order for intractable issues on climate change to be resolved.

The Executive Secretary for the Convention on Biological Diversity, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, elaborated on the impacts of climate change on island biodiversity. “…the special characteristics of islands and island biodiversity also make them highly vulnerable to a large range of potential impacts from climate change. Climate change and ocean acidification threaten marine resources, such as coral reefs that are suffering the effects of bleaching, pollution and other stressors,” he said. Mr. de Souza Dias added that “projected sea-level rise poses a high risk for low-lying islands and their coastal resources, such as corals, mangroves and reef fish.”

UN Conventions that Address Climate Change

He therefore called for the implementation of the Aichi Biodiversity Target 10, which recognizes the need to minimize pressures on coral reefs and other ecosystems impacted by climate change and ocean acidification. The Aichi Biodiversity Targets are 20 goals that make up part of the Convention on Biological Diversity's Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, adopted in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. The targets provide a framework for action by all stakeholders—including cities—to save biodiversity and enhance its benefits for people.

 In the view of Mr. de Souza Dias , “appropriately designed, ecosystem restoration and management of inland  and coastal biodiversity including seagrasses, salt marshes, mangroves and forest ecosystems, can also increase carbon sequestration and decrease emissions from ecosystem degradation, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation.” To this end, his call for the strengthening of collaboration in the implementation of three of Rio’s historic environmental agreement can be considered as timely and appropriate.  The Conventions namely – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Convention on Biological Diversity , address in an inter-related way, the challenges of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss, all of which are of great relevance to islands and island biodiversity.  

Relevance for Ghana

The celebrations of this year’s specially designated UN Days have significance for Ghana as a signatory to the UN Conventions. The significance of this year’s World meteorological Day, International Biodiversity Day and World Environment Day, for the country also border’s on the focus for the celebrations – climate change.  Experts have predicted that developing countries in particular, Ghana inclusive, will suffer most from the impacts of climate change. Research has confirmed that the country is highly sensitive to climate change events because 80 % of her economy is natural resources based.

The call to countries to hasten efforts in address climate change related problems is opportune in the face of unjustifiable destruction of the nation’s biodiversity.  It is indeed, a sad development in the country’s history that biologically endemic sites that were preserved for posterity should now be destroyed when they are most needed.  Almost all of the country’s Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas (GSBAs) including the Atewa Range Forest Reserve have been degraded.  

Concerned individuals, state officials and communities who have dared to raise their voices at these destructive activities have been ignored.  In the process, aged trees that have attained ceremonial prominence and have become master exhibits in urban afforestation within Accra, have been felled in the name of beautification.  Now it is the Aburi Botanical Gardens that has been made to succumb to the powers that be. The Aburi Botenical Gardens and the Bunsu Arboretum qualify as part of the country’s climate change mitigating measures in the area of preserving and regenerating endemic plants species.

The Chairman of the National Biodiversity Committee, Professor Alfred Oteng Yeboah has stressed the important role of biodiversity in combating climate change.  He said even though Ghana is not an island, her coastal and marine biological resources as well as wetland areas and even forest biodiversity are all under similar threats facing island biodiversity.  Professor Oteng Yeboah who is also a Lecturer at the Botany Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, called for intensive public education and awareness raising on the importance of protecting our biodiversity. He said this is essential because “vibrant and healthy biodiversity is relevant for poverty reduction and human well-being.”

(This item has already been published in the Tuesday June 10th, 2014 edition of the Business and Financial Times)