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Ghana submits NDC to UN Climate Change Secretariat as contribution to reduce global warming

Ghana has submitted its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) towards the worldwide efforts to reduce global warming, to the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Secretariat.

This means that stakeholders in the country could now focus on mobilising resources as well as translate its climate change ambition into actions through implementation.

NDC is a set of self-decided climate change mitigation and adaptation actions required of parties of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change adopted in 2015.

The submission of the document covering a 10-year period (2020-2030) is in fulfillment of Article 4 of the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) decisions 1/CP.21 and 4/CMA.1 which requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs.

The country’s UN Climate Change National Focal Point, Dr Daniel Tutu Benefoh, who filed the 26-page document on behalf of the country, announced this on Thursday at the ongoing 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.

He said the submission and subsequent publication of the document which was compiled by the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with support from other stakeholders, followed cabinet approval.

In 2015, Ghana submitted its first NDC in which the country set out to implement 31 mitigation and adaptation actions across seven economic sectors.

The update covers 19 policy areas and translates into 47 adaptation and mitigation programmes of action which are expected to build the resilience of over 38 million people, generate absolute greenhouse gas emission reductions of 64 MtCO2e, create over one million jobs, and avoid 2,900 deaths due to improved air quality by 2030.

“The update affirms the country’s resolve to address the impacts of climate change on the country’s economy and its vulnerable people,” said President Nana Akufo-Addo in the foreword of the document.

He said if no rapid action was taken to address climate change and its negative impacts now, the future cost would be prohibitive and counterproductive to the socio-economic gains made today, and for this reason, responding to climate change issues was top on the national development agenda.

“It is my cherished hope that the updated NDC will serve as a blueprint for transitioning into a climate-resilient low carbon economy that will accelerate our development efforts and enhance the well-being of our people without sacrificing the quality of the environment and its resources”, he said.

According to the document, Ghana requires between $ 9.3 and $ 15.5 billion of investment to implement the NDCs out of which $ 3.9 billion would be required to implement the 16 unconditional programmes of action till 2030.

The remaining $ 5.4 billion for the 31 conditional programmes of action would be mobilised from the public, international, and private sector sources and carbon markets.

Ghana would need an additional $ 3 million biennially to support coordination actions and the regular international reporting of the nationally determined contribution.

FROM JONATHAN DONKOR, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND (Courtesy EPA)

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