Ghana climate talks start, time said short

Kufuor calls for firm global action on climate change
About 160 nations resumed talks on a new climate treaty in Accra on Thursday with Ghana warning that time was short to work out a deal that will need billions of dollars a year to help the poor adapt to global warming.

President John Agyekum Kufuor has called on world leaders to move beyond rhetoric and act firmly to address the global threat posed by climate change in a way that would be satisfactory to all.

Both developed and developing countries, he said, must share in the responsibility to deal with the problem, identified by the United Nations Human Development Report, as "the defining development issue of our generation".

He said while the poor and vulnerable nations did their bit by committing to plans for climate resilient development, the rich on their part should provide sustained long-term funding in terms of technology transfer and capacity building.

President Kufuor was addressing the opening session of the Accra Climate Talks at the Accra International Conference Centre on Thursday. He welcomed the "Bali Action Plan", which provided a road map towards a new global agreement on climate change as encouraging. Not only has it led to the launch of the Adaptation Fund, with Ghana represented on its inaugural Board, but has generated a new momentum on technology development and transfer as well as scaled up related investment.

Additionally, action had been initiated on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, something key for many African countries, he said.

President Kufuor noted that initial estimates of costs of adaptation differed significantly but that they ran into tens of billions of dollars per year.

He spoke of the need for solid evidence to inform national responses and determine international financing needs and mechanisms. It was on account of this that Ghana had agreed to participate in a multi-country study of the economies of adaptation to climate change. Ghana's position, President Kufuor said, was that, "additional to general commitment to development financing projected to 2015, developing countries needed adequate and predictable finance from the international community, to be allocated on the basis of need, taking into account various levels of poverty and vulnerability". "Funding also needs to be governed and delivered in a way that builds climate resilience into development and allows Governments to lead the development process."

Ms. Connie Hedegaard, Minister of Climate and Energy, Denmark, said agreeing to half emissions by 2015 needed to be backed by political will.

"We have to move from the era of words to the era of action." The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Mr Yvo de Boer, said the Accra Talks were an important opportunity to pay closer attention to problems that confronted Africa.

Mr Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, Minister of Local Government, Environment and Rural Development, expressed worry about the dumping of old and junk computers on Africa.

This, he noted, was generating hazardous risks and must stop.