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INVITED PANELS ARE ACCEPTED FROM SCIENCE, POLICY, INDUSTRY OR PRACTITIONER COMMUNITIES ON ANY OF THE SUBTHEMES OF THE CONFERENCE ON CONDITION THAT ORGANIZERS HAVE OWN FUNDING & SPEAKERS
Subtheme
Cities and Climate Change (Imperatives for Action)
Convener
Dr. Benjamin Delali K. Dovie: Senior Research Fellow, Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Legon (dbdovie@rips-ug.edu.gh)
Discussant
Prof Shuaib Lwasa: Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Description
Safeguarding the sustainability of urban planning to deliver on resilience amidst multiple stresses in cities particularly sums up challenges faced by city planners globally, aggravated by disasters and climate extremes. This will require transactional and proactive knowledge to effectively build urban resilience against hydro-climatic risks. Societal demand has outpaced service supply and related physical infrastructure, against challenges such as population growth and poverty. Therefore, there is the need for new and enhanced approaches to city planning and management that defy administrative and urbanization barriers. The world is witnessing the reality of the negative effects of typical regional planning models rather than systems-wide and right-based approaches that integrate adjoining “regions and landscapes” into planning. Slum areas suffer most because they often occupied low lying areas. Climate-smart integrated flood management (CSIFM) for example will enhance climate change mainstreaming and promote infrastructure designs that rely on resilient indicators, gender equity and climate elements to shut the cost associated with hydro-climatic disasters. The session will discuss enablers of intersectoral collaboration, mechanisms and facilities for vertical and horizontal coordination, technocratic approaches, integrated understandings of population dynamics, use of scientific evidence in decision making, and balances in community, governance arrangements and the strategic civil and private sector input to decision-making for informed adaptation. The session is intended to bring together key actors from academia, civil society, national governments and the private sector to analyse gaps, opportunities, synergies and trade-offs in the cities-climate-change nexus in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area in Ghana.
Subtheme
Population health and climate change
Convener
Prof. Dr. Leonard K. Amekudzi: Associate Professor and Coordinator, Meteorology and Climate Science Programme
Department of Physics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana (leonard.amekudzi@gmail.com)
Main Speaker
Dr Michael Tanu: Director General, Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), Ghana
Description
Climate change has direct socio-economic impacts on sectors and systems in developing countries such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water resources, human health, human settlements and ecological systems, and hence affects livelihoods. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased over the last century – driven largely by economic and population growth, and have induce unprecedented change in global climate system. These changes include increased surface temperatures, rainfall variability and increased in frequency of extreme events such as drought, floods, sea level rise among others. Ghana has not been an exception and dire consequences of climate change in the form of extreme events affect population dynamics and important sectors of the country’s economy. This session looks at weather and climate applications which includes: Results from atmospheric field measurement campaigns, water resource management, disease and climate modeling, weather and climate forecast, agrometeorology, energy, land use changes and case studies involving weather and climate science.
Subtheme
Cities and Climate Change (Imperatives for Action)
Convener
Climate Change Resource Centre-Ghana, RIPS, University of Ghana, Legon
Main Speaker
Dr Raymond Kasei: Senior Lecturer, Department of Climate and Food Security, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
Description
The central business district (CBD) of Accra bordering the Odaw River catchment in Ghana experiences intense flooding attributed mostly to high surface runoff from rainfall especially from the highland areas as characteristic of most of Ghana’s coastal cities which are low lying areas. This means that even if there are no rains in Accra Central, and within Odaw’s catchments which comprises the central business district of Accra and typical informal settlements, the slightest rainfall in the mountainous areas such as within the Akuapem mountain range (Aburi, McCarthy Hills and surrounding) will result in flooding. This is because the drainage networks and the overall planning of Accra has not strategically accounted for the impacts of activities of the totality of the catchments of the city of Accra, the fringes and boundary effects. Therefore, the need for early warning and preparedness cannot be compromised. Hence, the Panel will draw on key experiences of Speakers from researchers, local people, civil society, policy and practice in sharing lessons on key information for building resilience of cities to flooding through flood early warning systems (FEWS), in attaining SDGs 11 and 13, on sustainable cities and climate change action, respectively. Lessons cut across reducing the time between flood warning and response from enhanced preparedness, flood contingency planning to minimize flood impacts on the vulnerable (e.g. women, elderly, girls and physically challenged) and promoting public-private-civil society sector partnership in response to flooding.
Sub Theme
Population – climate nexus
Convener(s)
Prof. Samuel N.A Codjoe (Director, RIPS & Project PI) / Prof. Kwasi Appeaning Addo (Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences, University of Ghana)
Guest Speaker
Hon. Mr. Clement Humado (Member of Parliament for Keta Municipality, Former Minister for Food and Agriculture)
Description
Globally deltas are home to about 500 million people.. However, it is estimated that by the year 2050, a minimum of 1 million people will be displaced by current sea-level trends within these deltas. Inhabitants of deltas experience multiple hazards namely coastal erosion, flooding, drought and salinization. The Volta Delta for instance, is an area of intense economic activity including commercial agriculture and the exploitation of resources such as salt. Threats of habitat fragmentation, unplanned human settlement, salt water intrusion, siltation and destruction of mangroves are the key challenges in the Delta catchment. The DECCMA project has as its main aim to evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation options and to assess migration as an adaptation option in deltaic environments under a changing climate. This is in order to deliver policy support to create the conditions for sustainable gender-sensitive adaptation. To achieve these, key stakeholders within the Volta delta have been engaged at the community, district and national levels. A household survey on migration and adaptation as well as biophysical assessment and socioeconomic analysis have been conducted through the project. This session will discuss the biophysical and socio-ecological evolution of the Volta Delta defined by the 5m contour, taking into consideration governance and policy response to environmental challenges. It will focus on the interactions between biophysical processes and anthropogenic activities in the delta. The session will further discuss findings on adaptation practices and migration patterns of populations in response to the biophysical and socio-ecological changes in the Volta Delta. We intend to bring together key actors from academia, civil society, national government and the media. The discussions will focus on sharing experiences and findings from the research project to inform policy and similar future research endeavours.