Director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Employment & Labor Relations, Mrs. Gloria B. Noi has urged policy makers to abreast themselves with the issue of climate change and associated policies and measures so that they are well informed on the implications of some of the choices they make, with regards to the environment and labor market.
Speaking at a Sensitization and Awareness creation on the National Green strategy organized by the Ministry of Employment and Labor in Takoradi, she explained that the negative impact of climate change and global warming has become evident.
‘In recent times, the negative impact of Global warming and Climate Change has become obvious to all of us. We have seen on the news and in our communities, extreme weather conditions such as flood, heatwaves, changes in the weather pattern, heavy downpours, drought, eroding soil fertilities, signal shift amongst others’ she said.
She explained that there is enough evidence from scientific studies to suggest that the ice belt on the north pole is melting and these events are bound to have dire consequences on human health if measures are not taken.
She further explained that Global warming is happening due to the accumulation of huge volumes of Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, among others in the atmosphere because of human activities. She therefore urged the Government to put in place measures to stop these activities.
According to her, an assessment of the climate response measures revealed that, apart from climate change, the response measures themselves also had a negative impact on the labor market despite the broad advantage of reducing emissions and creating new opportunities in the economy.
As a result, International Development Organizations such as the United Nations and the IML started calling for a just transition to an environmentally sustainable economy.
She advised that, due to the increasing global population and the need for us to use available resources sufficiently, sustainable development is the way to go.
She revealed that the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations and its partners have developed a national frame Job strategy as a coordinated framework that guides the implementation of measures for the maximization of the Job creation potential of the emerging green economy.
‘As we implement an environmentally sustainable environment, we also create Job opportunities at the same time, however, we can only take advantage of these opportunities when we make a deliberate effort to ensure that workers and job seekers acquire the requisite skills relevant to the emerging green economy, there is an emerging need for us to identify the requisite skills and facilitate the training of workers and job seekers in these skills to make them relevant to the green economy’ she said.
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