Climate Change Dangerous to Liberia
Authorities of the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA have disclosed here that Liberia lacks climate change experts.
As a result, according to the EPA, the country continues to experience more rainfall- even in the dry season.
The EPA indicated that Liberia does not have the professionals and trained climate experts to resolve the problem.
Speaking to journalists, students and participants Friday, May 22, 2015 at the Monrovia YMCA at the start of a two-day national climate change, and training workshop, EPA’s Coordinator for Climate Change, Multilateral and Enabling Activities Benjamin Karmorh, said climate change was affecting every sector of the country’s development agenda, noting that the Agriculture sector, including the coastal line, has damaged due to the lack of experts to resolve the problem.
It can be recalled that the EPA conducted a Workshop in Grand Bassa County to building the capacity of journalists to report on environmental issues. The workshop, conducted by the EPA with support from the United Nation Economics Commission or UNECA, brought together civil society groups, students from various learning institutions, as well as stakeholders, to discuss issues relating to climate change in Liberia.
The Act creating the EPA charges the agency with the responsibility to monitor, supervise and coordinate all activities relating to the living condition of citizen in every environment of the country.
Meanwhile, the Keynote Speaker of the workshop- Deputy Minister for Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning Tanneh Bruson has said that climate change arises when the average long term weather pattern of a region is being altered for an extended period of time.
According to Minister Bruson, the occurrence of climate change in Liberia may either be of natural cause such as volcanic eruption, variations in earth orbits or changes in the sun intensity, emphasizing that anthropogenic human activities, such as deforestation, burning of fossil fuels and industrial production, moreover, increase the green house level, which traps more heat in our atmosphere- also contributing to global warming and climate change conversely.
She indicated that climate change was mostly caused by change in the total amount of energy kept within the earth atmosphere, saying this change in energy is then spread out around the globe mainly by ocean currents, as well as wind patterns to affect the climates of different regions.
The Deputy Finance and Development Planning Minister also pointed out that Liberia faces enormous challenges to build the required institutions and system for carbon rights, including benefits-sharing mechanism, providing equity distribution to forest communities, access to financing and availability of cutting edge technology, noting that parallel to these are the lack of political support and national buy in climate change in the country.
According to Minister Bruson, to eliminate the risk of global climate change, concerted efforts were needed from the government of most countries to further increase energy efficiency and move away from today’s heavy reliance on fossils fuel, others mitigation measure like building resilience, adaptation strategies and ecosystem management within varying context- some of the measures currently adopted by countries across the globe. By Lewis S. Teh – Editing by George Barpeen
