The Municipal Chief Executive of Ketu South, Maxwell Koffie Lugudor has underscored the importance of taking up climate change issues seriously as gradually, all over the world everyone is experiencing it.
According to him, he sometimes questions if people really believe and understand the issues of climate change, adding that back in his home country Ghana, he noticed that professors sometimes might not take the issues of climate change serious until they see the effect.
He made this known in his remarks on Wednesday, November 6, 2024, at a panel discussion of Mayors at an Indian set up pavilion in Cario, Egypt, at the ongoing 12th Session of UN-habitat World Urban Forum.
He further recounted that nowadays in his municipality; Ketu South in the Southern Part of Ghana in West Africa, salt production is being affected by climate change.
“We have two seasons, the dry season and the wet season. Previously you can easily predict and know the time it will be raining, but these days you cannot even predict, you wake up and there is flooding all over; people are now feeling the effect of climate change”.
The MCE further called for efforts in addressing the issue of climate change and he recounted taking a team from his Municipality to Germany. “And one will ask why should we go to Germany before solving climate change problem?” “We are in a global village; you might think I do not care about what is going on in another country, until the reality sets in”.
And I always give this example, I have never been to China before but when there was COVID -19 pandemic, I was ask in my village to cover my nose, but where it started from was in China.
In his contribution at the panel discussion, he revealed that as part of his trip to Germany, they have started to fight plastic waste, stating that a number of practices that endangers the environment like dropping sachet water wastes on the floor, excessive use of plastics among others are being curtailed.
With the partnership with our colleagues in Germany, I took a delegation there to study waste segregation into plastic, metals, glass among others for recycling purposes; and we have started a serious project in Ketu South it is helping people get in come.
“There are small companies ready to buy those plastic bags, so education is ongoing now, people now know that what we are calling waste is not a waste, we can make money out of it and we are spreading it across the municipality even across Togo. We can make things happen when we start something”.
