CONCERT project, one of the WRAP2 project of The West African Science Services Centre on Climate Change and Adaptive Land Use (WASCAL) has initiated a project to identify emission mitigation options for the major greenhouse gases under climate change and land use change for food security in West Africa.

At a two-day regional technical workshop in Kumasi, Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann chairman of Regional Climate and Hydrology at the University of Augsburg said Africa needs to adapt to specific climatic conditions to mitigate the effect of climate change.

The Concerted Regional Modelling and Observation Assessment (The CONCERT project) brought together stakeholders from different West African countries including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Niger to look into reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving food security.

The aim is to adapt strategies to threats, opportunities and uncertainties to improve parallel food security in the sub-region.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the workshop, Prof. Dr. Kunstmann said the workshop has become necessary because of increasing threat to climate change in the West African sub region..

" West Africa is threatened by climate change. West African countries face tremendous challenges in flooding, change in weather conditions, drought among others. They need to adapt and in parallel with the world community to mitigate and find specific solutions for countries in the region". He stated

In order to achieve a successful implementation of the program, Dr. Jan Bleifernich explained the need to for the provision of data services and scientific computation.

" We are looking at what to do with our land management, which heat and temperatures we should expect and how we can ensure a sustainable food production in the coming years under changing climate conditions and that requires a lot. It requires very complex computer simulations, observation to see how well our models can produce what we see in the field". He said

The Executive Director of the West African Science Service on climate change and adaptable land use, Prof. Kehinde Ogunjobi on his part said the CONCERT project seeks to leverage on Agricultural and land processes to achieve food security.

" WASCAL is the one coordinating, monitoring and evaluating to ensure accountability of all the activities of the CONCERT project.

CONCERT is one of the projects that is looking at the greenhouse gases and we're trying to see how we can balance between issues of food security and also meeting the 1.5 to 2.0 degree temperature which we have been talking about in the conference."

"You are producing rice for example, you are also releasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide or methane which affect the climate of our environment but still need to have food security. So aim is how to leverage on the Agricultural processes, land cover processes and still have our food security". He explained