Global Journal of Science Frontier Research, H: Environment & Earth Science, Volume 23 Issue 5

increased food insecurity. This point has been observed by Hjelm and Dasori (2012) that communities in Northern Ghana have witnessed greater heights of food insecurity than the remaining communities found in those regions along the south. Consequently, households in the Northern Regions that undergo food insecurity frequently are saddled with inadequate income, malnutrition, and ill health, among others greatly caused by climate change variability. For example, Nyuor et al. (2016) report that rising temperatures in the course of the initial and late seasons have led to a decrease in the ensuing revenue that would have been obtained from a hectare of sorghum. The threats to the agricultural sector have implications on food security, socio-economic and human security threats implications since agriculture has been the source of livelihood for many households in rural communities. This makes it more crucial for all stakeholders relevant to global climate change affairs to step up in their actions toward effective policies, interventions, and efforts aimed at stemming the tides. Traditionally, climate change governance and efforts were essentially ceded to state actors who championed these courses of action at the state and global levels. However, it has been observed that international climate change agreements continue to achieve sub-optimal commitments by states (UNEP 2013). Over time, it has become increasingly crucial that non-state actors come on board by way of collaborative governance and policy networks to effectively play a more nuanced role in climate change efforts at all levels (Abbott 2012; Bulkeley et al. 2012; Schroeder & Lovell 2012). The involvement of non-state actors in global climate governance in the last three and half decades has been a unique feature that cannot be overlooked. (Backstrand, 2013). Consequently, it has been established in the literature and climate governance regimes that climate change adaptation ought to encompass multiple actors from the public and private sectors as well as from across civil society (IPCC 2014). This point has forcefully been argued by Lemos and Agrawal (2006) that climate change involves the typical case of an intricate multi-scalar ecological problem, where mitigation and adaptation require a diversity of actors across the state-society divide. Bäckstrand et al (2017) advance the concept of ‘hybrid multilateralism’ as a heuristic to demonstrate the strengthened relationship between state and non-state actors in the reviewed arena of global climate change cooperation. They conceptualize non-state actors to include civil society organizations, social movements, as well as economic actors involving, inter alia, industry and trade unions and sub-national such as local governments and cities (p 562). The increasing role and recognition of these non-state actors cannot be overestimated. For example, the Copenhagen summit brought forth a climate regime that researchers have described as multifarious, discrete, disjointed, and polycentric (Cole 2015).In other words, the summit saw and recognized numerous actors and stakeholders from varying backgrounds. On his part, Lövbrand et al. (2017) contend that the quantum of participants at the annual Conference of Parties (COPs) has increased over the years, reaching the zenith in Paris with more than 28,000 accredited participants; with at least 8000 of these designated as non-state observers. With the inception of the Paris Agreement, the observer groups present at the annual COPs are called upon to perform a more integrated role in multilateral processes through, monitoring of national action and experimentation with local, regional, and transnational mitigation and adaptation strategies. Conceptually, the category of NSAs may be in the form of virtually anything: organizations, global associations, investors, religious communities, social networks, industry associations, and, at last, people. Many studies either discuss the role of non- state actors in general terms or generalize based on case studies of one non-state actor category (Fisher & Green 2004). This implies that systematic comparison of perceptions of agency across non-state actors is largely lacking (Bulkeley et al. 2012).Despite the ongoing treatise on the prospect of non-state actors contributing to mitigation and adaptation efforts by global governance scholars (Hale, 2016; Kuramochi et al., 2020), the literature has not paid greater attention to the role non-state actors might play in bringing about an appropriate response to climate change. This position has been confirmed by Baker et al. (2020) whilst the growing acceptance of hybridity in climate governance is not in doubt [one that combines public and private authority in governance], the functional participation of the non-state actors in climate governance has seen sufficient research, it appears the actual practices through which climate issues are governed towards positive socio-ecological outcomes remains under- researched. The objective of this paper was to discuss the role of non-state actors in helping smallholder farmers deal with the food and income security threats posed by climate change. Ghana’s Climate Change Policy (Ministry of Environment, 2013) recognizes the dangers posed by climate change and points out that the country is especially vulnerable to climate change and variability because of its dependence on areas that are delicate to climate change, like agriculture, forestry, and energy production. In other words, farmers have become saddled with lower yields and total losses due to climate change variability, and the government appears overwhelmed. In what ways do non-state actors in the form of NGOs intervene to help these farmers? The paper discusses the role of non-state actors [with particular emphasis on international NGOs] in addressing the food security threats posed by climate © 2023 Global Journals 1 Year 2023 50 Global Journal of Science Frontier Research Volume XXIII Issue ersion I VV ( H ) Addressing Security Risk Caused by Climate Change Across Nations: The Role of Non-State Policy Actors