Momodou B Sarr, executive director, National Environment Agency, has said that it is globally acknowledged that Climate Change is a great threat to human development.
 
Presenting a paper on "Climate Change scenarios and impacts in Africa: A Public Relations perspective," at the recently concluded 22nd African Public Relations Conference, held at the Sheraton Hotel, Brufut, Mr. Sarr observed that Climate Change science is not meteorological and weather forecasting, although meteorological data is a necessary basis for Climate Change prediction.

"Climate Change consists of short and medium term climate variability together with long-term gradual climate change (Changes in annual average temperature). Real climate change is a very slow process and is mostly defined through large global simulation models (GCM). Climate variability deals only with the variations in weather as we know it over short periods of time," he further said.

The Federation of African Public Relations (FAPRA) as was then called was formed on 10th June 1975 when the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) held a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. During the meeting, discussions were held on how to strengthen Public Relations Associations in Africa. It was then that the Federation of African Public Relations Associations, FAPRA, was born. At its annual General Conference in Kumasi, Ghana, in 2008 the name was changed from FAPRA to APRA.

The aims of the association amongst others include setting standards for the practice of Public Relations in Africa, encouraging the teaching of Public Relations in Africa's tertiary  institutions as well as encouraging the establishment of national and sub-regional Public Relations Associations in Africa with a view to promoting the practice of Public Relations on the continent.

"Public Relations (PR) is about managing reputation; it is a career profession that aims to gain understanding and support for clients as well as to influence opinion and behaviour. PR practitioners use all forms of media and communications to build, maintain, and manage the reputation of organizations ranging from public bodies or services to businesses and voluntary organizations," he observed.

Unveiling the relationship between Climate Change and Public Relations, Mr. Sarr noted that PR is already integrated into the political and economic choices made by people, adding that there is also the understanding of the structural reality of Climate Change in its broad dimensions with its medium and long term repercussions on societies. "These two elements combined identify the need to make clear the direct connection between Climate Change and other socio-economic factors such as urbanization, poverty, food safety, health, agriculture, tourism, energy, water scarcity, migration etc."
This generally in summary entails human survival. It is therefore important to point out that governments have taken important steps in recent years in trying to co-relate PR and Climate Change.

"In 1992 at Rio during the World Conference on Sustainable Development (WCSD), it dawned on all of us that the phenomenon of global warming is a reality and something needs to be done. The United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was agreed and signed and negotiations started for mitigation actions," he stated.He said from 1992, the positive stance of governments with the support of PR professionals keeps the momentum of global social responsibility with regards to Climate Change through to Bali and now towards Copenhagen 2009.

"Throughout this period, it is evident that in most speeches by high officials in government; the term 'Climate Change' is appearing more and more often. The same activity applies in the private sector as business tries to identify itself with corporate social responsibility especially with regards to global warming," he added. He observed that it is evident that political awareness seems to be developing as there seems to be more discussions on the risks that respective societies are likely to face from the effects of Climate Change, adding that as a result of these discussions, mitigation and adaptation plans are formulated not only by governments but together with the private sector in their stance of corporate social responsibility.

"PR actors have taken the lead here; their will to act is evidently translated into concrete action, i.e. by engaging positively and developing several mitigation strategies in their corporate structures identifying their institutions as active participants in the fight against global warming," Sarr stated. He further established that governments are also actively seen creating lasting structures at state level to manifest their commitments for mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change, saying Climate Change units, National Climate Change (NCC) committees have been created in most African countries in recent years, and these have supported the dissemination of information relating to Climate Change.

"These institutions were able to identify the synergy of Climate Change and several industries such as (CC/ water industry, etc.). Governments were also able to initiate large-scale programmes to make their respective populations to be aware of and educated about the repercussions of Climate Change and the technical methods available to improve adaptation to its harmful effects," He noted.

Mr Sarr concluded that now it is a norm to find in most government institutions official designations of Public Relations Officers (PROs). "They act as the information outlet of the client in this case government, and in other sphere of businesses or voluntary organizations," he said.