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

At a two-day regional technical workshop in Kumasi, Prof. 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. Kunstmann said the workshop has become necessary because of the increasing threat of climate change in the West African sub-region.

"West Africa is threatened by climate change. West African countries face tremendous challenges in flooding, changes in weather conditions, and 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.

To achieve a successful implementation of the programme, Dr Jan Bleifernich explained the need 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 sustainable food production in the coming years under changing climate conditions and that requires a lot. It requires very complex computer simulations, and 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 Adapted Land Use, Prof. Kehinde Ogunjobi said the CONCERT project seeks to leverage Agriculture 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 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 the aim is how to leverage on the agricultural processes, land cover processes and still have our food security” he explained.