Statement delivered by Ms. Nakeeyat Dramani, Climate Vulnerable Forum Youth Ambassador, Republic of Republic of Ghana
V20 MINISTERIAL DIALOGUE IX
16 October 2022
Ms. Nakeeyat Dramani, Climate Vulnerable Forum Youth Ambassador, Republic of Republic of Ghana
I greet you, Honorable Dignitaries present and our great audience watching us around the globe. I’m so elated to be part of this august gathering, a gathering whose focus is to address the negative effects of climate change and as a result of heightened socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities facing our world today.
For today, we all together are seeing payment overdue because countries doing the least to cause climate crises see its worst impacts. Those are only getting more frequent and extreme. Cho boi. When I say Cho boi please respond yea. Cho boi This is a call to action, to the big carbon polluters.
Share this burden and pay up the loss and the damages because in the beginning God created heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty, and when creation story was over, flora and fauna, the plants and animal lives that dazzled the eyes were bequeathed to man. Ata chu bonsu aduma kua waze amboyen ambokra wad domain ijapase are herd yea yezishudu nayiashadiye na abandon na yama asaseif were we insei sui. Why are we destroying the environment? The destruction and the depletion of our resources should stop now. Let us save our climate to prevent extinction of endangered species.
You are building on waterways, but you see nothing wrong with it. You, you, I am talking to you. If the environment had a mouth, she would speak. Because the results come, even though it is not her season, come intolerant. When it’s time for the sun, it gives us its best heat, as if it wants to devour its prey. Climate change, global warming, and ozone depletion are beckoning. The garbage you threw into the gutter last night you knew wasn’t right, but you never bothered.
If the environment had a mouth, she would speak. Because over a period of 100 years, Ghana has lost 80 percent of its forest cover. Yes, you heard me right. Eighty percent of our forest cover is gone. Fishermen are now catching more plastics than fishes. If the environment had a mouth, she would speak. So asa see on na enjo bakasa.
You see clean rivers bustling with aquatic lives and you pollute them with chemicals and machines. A call to action is now because this forum is about our planet. This forum is about our home, our habitat. It’s about our continuous existence. This forum is not about our destruction and termination. This forum is about the foods, the hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis we experience day in and day out. This forum is about the extreme climate phenomena being experienced in rapid succession around the globe, such as land degradation, drought and typhoons. This forum, this story, this discourse, is asking a question.
That’s can we survive this at our rate of climate change? This forum is re-echoing the fears of Antonio Guterres, U.N. Secretary General, who said we are losing the race to global warming. This forum is to transform quickly the way we produce food, the way we provide electricity and the way we are destroying our environment. This forum is to encourage nations and continents to scale up efforts for climate change mitigation. The biggest carbon polluters, please share this burden and pay up for the loss and the damages, payment is overdue, payment is overdue, payment is overdue. I, Nakeeyat Dramani, the Youth Ambassador for Climate Vulnerable Forum, has written this book to help me catch up with my peers and connect to all youths across the globe with a yearly conference so we can discuss about having our world become a better place to live. Thank you.
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