Ghana is set to receive up to Fifty Million US Dollars (US$50,000,000.00) in World Bank funding to reduce carbon dioxide emissions between 2019 and 2024. This was revealed by the World Bank’s Climate Change Manager, Mr. Erwin De Nys, on Wednesday, November 9th, 2022. The sum is in exchange for approximately ten million tons of CO2 emissions expected to be reduced by 2024 within a six million hectare stretch of West African Guinean Forest.
Mr. De Nys was speaking at an event organized by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources at the ongoing twenty-seventh session of the Conference of Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. He stated that Ghana has been a vital and active member of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility since its inception in 2008, and that it was one of the first countries to implement emission reduction programs and results-based payments.
Mr. De Nys stated that the country will soon receive US$4.8 million, representing over 970,000 tons of verified and validated emission reductions between June and December 2019. He stated that the payment will be used to reward stakeholders for reducing emissions and to boost trust in Ghana’s REDD+ process. In addition to this payment, Mr. De Nys stated that Ghana will benefit from the World Bank’s Enabling Access to Benefits while Lowering Emissions (EnABLE) Program to further reduce emissions and ensure social inclusion.
Samuel Abu Jinapor, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, called for strategic collaboration to close the climate financing gap. He stated that existing financing options are insufficient to deal with the enormity of the problem, and that having missed the $100 billion climate finance pledge made in Copenhagen, there is an urgent need for stakeholders to collaborate to bridge the gap between ambition and action. Mr. Jinapor urged governments and all actors to go beyond pledges and declarations.
“We have reached a point in the climate struggle where mere talk, commitments, declarations, and/or pledges are insufficient.” According to the Minister, “this is the time for the world to “walk the talk” and get on with action and implementation of the many years of unfulfilled climate action promises.” He stated that Ghana was committed to forest and nature-based climate change solutions, as evidenced by the cultivation of over 547,000 hectares of degraded forests between 2017 and 2021, and the planting of over thirty million trees under the Green Ghana Project, as well as the verified and validated emission reduction under the Ghana REDD+ Strategy.
He expressed confidence in COP27, dubbed the “action and implementation COP,” to deliver on the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to one degree Celsius (1.5 degrees Celsius). Tim Claris, the UNDP’s Principal Advisor on Climate and Forests, who also spoke at the event, praised Ghana for its forest solutions to climate change and said the country deserved to be recognized for its efforts in the forestry sector.
