The emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduced in Ghana by two million tonnes per annum between 2011 and 2017, according to Ghana’s 2nd Biennial Update Report (BUR) on climate.
GHG are gases, including carbon dioxide, that radiate from a planet’s atmosphere and warms the planet’s surface to a temperature above what it would be without this atmosphere.
The reduction was achieved through the implementation of national mitigation policies and commitment to unconditional reduction of emission by 15 per cent below Business As Usual (BUA) emissions of 74 million tonnes by 2030.
Mr John A. Pwamang, the Acting Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), presented the report during the 8th Workshop of Facilitative Sharing of Views at the ongoing climate conference in Spain.
Despite the reduction, however, indicated that Green House Gas (GHG) emission has increased by 7.1 per cent since 2012.
According to Mr Pwamang, rising population and urbanisation, carbon-intensive economic growth and diversification, deforestation, road transportation, thermal electricity generation and solid waste disposal are key drivers of Ghana’s Green Gas emission trends.
He said in order to reverse these trends, Ghana has embedded her Climate Agenda for 2030 (Nationally Determined Contributions) into Ghana’s National Medium Term Development Plan 2017-2021.
“Additionally, Ghana has set aside 20 mitigation actions (20 unconditional mitigation actions) to one(1) in forest plantation and one (1)fossil-fuel thermal power plants and 18 conditional mitigation action in forestry, energy, waste, transport and industry to achieve its emission goals,” the report said.
The report further revealed that clean cooking, reduced Natural Gas flaring and reductions from electricity generation were the highest contributors to emission savings, which resulted into a cumulative total of 13.7million from 2011 to 2017.
Briefing the workshop on enhancing inter-sectoral and Development Partner Coordination, Mr Peter Dery, Acting Director for Environment at Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), stated that Ghana has over the years improved on coordination through inter-sectoral committees and working groups.
He said the Ministry of Finance has developed a tracking tool to track all financial inflows from Developments Partners to MDAs. This, he said, will soon be extended to cover Civil Society and the Private Sector.
Opening the workshop, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC Christian Patricia Espanosa, called for increase in ambition to enable Parties meet the global target of reducing global warming to two degrees against pre industrial level and the Sustainable Development Goals.
BY TIMES REPORTER
