Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 October 2015

GHANA NEEDS $22.6 BILLION TO IMPLEMENT CLIMATE ACTIONS


Ghana needs $22.6 billion in investments from domestic and international public and private sources to finance its climate mitigation and adaptation actions.

The country's 31 programme of actions will drive the strategic focus of a “10-year post-2020 enhanced climate action plan” that would be developed after the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris.

This is contained in Ghana’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted on September 23, 2015 to the UNFCCC, ahead of the deadline.
An INDC is a government's proposed 'contribution' to the UNFCCC as to what it will do about climate change.
COP 21 CLIMATE CHANGE


The Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC invited parties to communicate to the secretariat their INDCs well in advance of the Paris climate summit in December 2015 “in a manner that facilitates the clarity, transparency and understanding of the INDCs.
As at October 1, there were 108 submitted INDCs on the UNFCCC website, including that of Ghana.

Ghana's INDC is anchored on the medium-term development agenda (Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda II – GSGDA 2), National Climate Change Policy and the Low Carbon Development Strategy, as well as the anticipated 40-year long-term development and the universal sustainable development goals.

According to the document,“the proposed measures to achieve the INDC goal will build on existing measures and strategies”.
In all, 20 mitigation and 11 adaptation programme of actions in 7 priority economic sectors are being proposed for implementation in the 10-year period (2020-2030).

The implementation of the actions are expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction in the priority sectors: Sustainable land use including food security; Climate proof infrastructure; Equitable social development; Sustainable mass transportation; Sustainable energy security; Sustainable forest management; and Alternative urban waste management.

Ghana's emission reduction goal is to unconditionally lower its GHG emissions by 15% relative to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario emission of 73.95 MtCO2e by 2030.

An additional 30 percent emission reduction is attainable on condition that external support is made available to Ghana to cover the full cost of implementing the mitigation action (finance, technology transfer, capacity building).
With this external support, a total emission reduction of 45% below the BUA emission levels can be achieved by 2030.

The total investment cost for implementing the 20 transformational mitigation actions is $9.81 billion – representing 45% of the total investment. Out of this, Ghana will mobilize $2.02 billion (21% of the total investment cost) to finance the two unconditional INDCs. An additional $7.79 billion will be needed to finance the remaining 18 mitigation actions in order to achieve more ambitious emission reductions in the 10 year period.

The long-term goal of Ghana’s adaptation is to increase climate resilience and decrease vulnerability for enhanced sustainable development.
Ghana will require $12.79 billion for adaptation – $4.21 billion (34%) will be mobilized at the national level, whilst the remaining $8.29 billion is the international contribution Ghana is looking for in order to meet the cost of implementing its adaptation actions.

Adaptation under Ghana’s INDC is informed by: good governance and inter-sectoral coordination; capacity-building, the role of science, technology and innovation; adequate finance from both domestic sources and international cooperation; promoting outreach by informing, communicating and educating the citizenry; and adhering to accountable monitoring and reporting.

Ambitious climate resilient economy
Africa and other developing countries remain vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In Ghana, the agricultural and food economy are already under threat as local farmers reel under the severity of the weather.
Achieving a 2oC global temperature target is ambitious but means for adaptation and mitigation remain critical to the vulnerable.

In preparing and submitting its INDC, Ghana is mindful of its international obligations as a Party to the UNFCCC while simultaneously pursuing a national development agenda that seeks to achieve the long-standing objective of becoming a fully-fledged middle-income economy.

Ghana’s response to the threats posed to this objective by the impacts of climate change has been to pursue coordinated domestic policy actions that in effect seek to develop a policy framework that integrates adaptation, mitigation and other climate related policies within broader development policies and planning.

This is in order to safeguard developmental gains from the impacts of climate change and build a climate resilient economy.
Ghana holds the view that the INDCs should cover mitigation, adaptation, finance technology, capacity building and transparency and agrees with the common position of Africa.

Original story: ghanaweb.com




Friday, 26 July 2013

Climate Issues My Views, Reality and Thoughts

The phrases CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL WARMING and more recently GLOBAL COOLING are now part of our lives and rarely does a day go by without a mention in the press or on the radio of the possible causes of climate change and its consequences.

Climate change has come upon us in a relatively short space of time and is accelerating with alarming speed. It is perhaps the most serious problem that the civilized world has had to face.

"We are moving towards a technological and economic tipping point" that could reshape energy use and drastically reduce emissions.



The longer we delay decreasing emissions, the more we are going to have to spend on adaptation. Many countries are addressing climate change out of their own need and national interest.
When we think about Copenhagen we need to think about "what did we learn and what is different now.

What is different is governments have agreed to come to an agreement and many more extreme weather events have hit many countries. But in all this, there are others that are adamant of the real and occurring current facts of the issue with climate science.

It has become evident that disaster, climate risks are becoming impediments to poverty reduction. Some might disagree but there are research findings that prove this. To support this statement here is a link for your reading attention : VIDEO:‬ Climate Change in ‪‎Africa‬ Will Hit the ‪Poor‬ the Hardest.

In spite of all the publicity and coverage and indeed in the face of real evidence, there are many dissenting voices who either do not accept that climate change is taking place or that anthropogenic gases and compounds, such as carbon dioxide, are responsible for the major effect.


Well I can also add another link to buttress my case of climate risk impeding poverty reduction. In a situation where governments need to channel resources into providing the basic amenities for the poor, there will be the pressing need to tackle the high risks of Climate change. Read this World Bank report : The climate crisis will lock millions into poverty according to a new World Bank report .


I am not done yet with this post. I will surely add more to this post. I might edit this or do another post.