Kwaku works with a tight calendar; making a routine business trip every week between Kumasi and Accra, the kind professionals make without a second thought.
On this typical Tuesday, he takes an early morning flight from Kumasi for meetings in Accra, with an evening return flight to Kumasi for another early-morning engagement the next day that could unlock a significant business deal.
By mid-morning upon arriving in Accra, the sun blazed with unusual intensity, draining energy from anyone forced to move between appointments.
Kwaku dashed from one office to another as the sun burnt hot and harsh, but stayed focused on finishing his work to catch his evening flight back to Kumasi.
But without a warning, the clouds gathered. What had been scorching skies just hours earlier began to darken as clouds gathered fast and thick, rolling in with surprising speed. Within minutes, the atmosphere flipped from heatwave to storm warning.
Then came the rain; a torrential downpour. By the time Kwaku reached the airport, the announcement board read flight delayed. Then what he feared hit him; his flight cancelled.
The same skies that had scorched him hours earlier had now grounded him completely.
Despite his careful planning, he could not return to Kumasi that evening, missing a scheduled meeting for the following day.
In just one day, Kwaku experienced two extremes — intense heat and a disruptive storm — both powerful enough to alter personal and professional outcomes.
What once felt like isolated weather incidents now seem connected, part of a broader pattern of climate volatility that was becoming harder to ignore.
Climate change is no longer an abstract headline or distant environmental debate; it is operational risk, an economic loss and human disruption happening in real time.
UN Climate chief calls for new era of climate action
Last Thursday, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, addressed a press conference hosted by the COP31 President Designate, Minister Murat Kurum in Istanbul, Türkiye, where he stated that climate action can deliver stability in an unstable world of arms and trade wars.
“We find ourselves in a new world disorder. This is a period of instability and insecurity. Of strong arms and trade wars. The very concept of international cooperation is under attack. These challenges are real and serious.
“Climate action can deliver stability in an unstable world of arms and trade wars. In the face of the current chaos, we can, and must, drive forward a new era of international climate cooperation,” he said.
The UN Climate Change’s plan for a new era of climate action was divided into
three eras: first was to uncover the problem and respond; and the second was to
get serious about solutions in building the Paris Agreement.
Simon Stiell acknowledged the
Agreement did not solve the climate crisis, but showed that nations can deliver
change on a major scale when they stand together.
“In the decade since Paris, clean energy investment is up tenfold – from two
hundred billion dollars to over two trillion dollars a year. And, in 2025,
amidst all the economic uncertainty and gale-force political headwinds, the
global transition kept surging forward: clean energy investment kept growing
strongly, and was more than double that of fossil fuels.
“Renewables
overtook coal as the world's top electricity source. The majority of countries
produced new national climate plans that will help drive their economic growth
up and – for the first time – global emissions down. And, at COP30, nations
said with one voice: the global transition is now irreversible, the Paris
Agreement is working, and together we will make it go further and faster,” he emphasized.
Trump challenges climate science
While the UN Climate chief is strongly advocating climate adaptation for resilience building, US President Donald Trump has continued his attack on climate science by revoking a landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health.
The key Obama-era scientific ruling in 2009 underpins all US federal actions on curbing planet-warming gases.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided that key planet-warming greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, were a danger to human health.
But the reversal, according to the White House, is necessitated by the drive to make cars cheaper with an expected ease in the cost of production.
"This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam, one of the greatest scams in history," said President Trump, who has snubbed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change twice.
The exit of US from the Paris Agreement means that America will no longer be bound by the agreement's requirements, such as submitting plans to reduce carbon emissions.
As the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind only China, environmental groups say the latest move by the US is by far the most significant rollback on climate change, amidst skepticism of the potential cost savings being touted by the Trump administration.
The Third Era of Climate Action
The
UN Climate Chief has observed an unprecedented threat to the decade of
international climate cooperation that has delivered more real-world progress.
“From those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific
logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas – even though
that means worsening climate disasters and spiralling costs for households and
businesses. These forces are undeniably strong, but they need not prevail,” stated
Stiell.
His solution to the chaos and regression is for countries to stand together,
building on successes and working more closely with businesses, investors, and
regional and civic leaders to deliver more real-world results in every country.
This is the third era of climate action; an era to speed-up and scale-up
implementation of actions.
“It must start with a relentless focus on delivering – or even exceeding – the
targets agreed in the first global stocktake, in 2023. Doubling energy
efficiency and tripling clean energy by 2030. Transitioning away from all
fossil fuels, in a just, fair and orderly manner. Strengthening resilience and
reducing vulnerability, and ensuring more climate finance reaches people
everywhere, especially the most vulnerable,” said Simon Stiell.
The expectation is for countries to be on track to meet the commitments by the
second global stocktake in 2028, in boosting resilience, growing economies, and
slashing emissions.
“The fact is climate adaptation is the only path to securing billions of human
lives, as climate impacts get rapidly worse,” said Mr. Stiell. “As climate
disasters hit food supplies and drive inflation, resilient supply chains are
crucial for the price stability populations are demanding. And they are
increasingly unforgiving of governments who don’t deliver it.
“So more than ever, climate action and cooperation are the answer: not despite
global instability, but because of it. There is a huge amount of work before
us, this year and in the years to come”.
As
vulnerable people and communities in Africa are already suffering the extremes
of weather conditions,
the UN conference of parties (COP31) in Antalya is expected to deliver for
people, prosperity and planet.
For professionals like Kwaku, what used to be a routine of moving between two cities for work has suddenly felt uncertain; the weather is no longer background noise, it is deciding outcomes.
Amidst the reality of climate science and the challenge to the impact of the science, what would a new world disorder of climate change mean for people like Kwaku?
Kofi Adu Domfeh is a journalist and Climate Reality Leader| adomfeh@gmail.com
