The Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), University of Ghana, on Monday opened a five-day international conference to harness and share experiences that would help address issues of climate change in Africa.

Dubbed, the 2nd International Climate Change and Population conference on Africa, it affords various participants across the continent the opportunity to deliberate and bridge the research and policy gaps on climatic change that is lacking in Africa.

The theme for the conference is: “Climate Change and Development at Crossroads- Sharing Lessons. Participants include researchers, civil society actors, politicians, development partners, and academics among others from Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, France and US.

Dr Delali Dovie, Conference Convener, said the conference which has become an annual event is to serve as a citadel to discuss issues that affect Africans and also serve as a platform to deliberate on issues “that affected Africans by themselves and come out with their own solutions”.

He said the conference was also to build on that of last year to draw on climate change experiences within coastal zones but with implications for the whole of society and other ecosystems.

Dr Dovie said a communiqué would be issued at the end of the conference to inform policy makers and other actors on the need to act to mitigate the effects of climate change.

He also announced that a climatic adaptation fund in Ghana would be initiated from the conference to help gather resources and funds to support local communities that fall under the Climate Change adaptation project.

Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, said the fact that Africa faces a serious developmental challenge from climate change which was worsened by gaps between sciences on the one hand, and policy and intervention on the other, called for the need to interact and share lessons.

He said the results of global warming, on the climate in Africa, had also been predicted to become more variable and extreme weather events were expected to be more frequent and severe, coupled with increasing risks of droughts and floods.

The minister explained that up to 50 per cent of Africa’s total biodiversity was at risk from reduced habitat while climate related disasters globally were now known to be displacing more people than war “and this is estimated at between 200 million to one billion by year 2050.

He said the existing development challenges of most countries in Africa, such as low GDP per person, widespread endemic poverty, weak institutions, low levels of education, low levels of primary health care and conflicts would undermine efforts to tackle climate change.

He called for strong and proactive policy from researchers and academia that would pave way for the development of strategies like national action plans for adaptation, clean development mechanisms, adaptation financing mechanisms and national green funds to address climate change issues in Africa.

Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, who chaired the opening, said findings and outputs of the conference should contribute to policies that would keep politicians on their toes to implement measures that would solve the problems of society.

International and local participants would present various papers on climate and population related issues and outline solutions that would help address them.