By Lydia Kukua Asamoah, GNA’s Special Correspondent, Katowice, Poland
(Credit: GIZ, Ministry of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency)
Katowice, Poland, Dec 11, GNA - Mr John Pwamang, the Acting Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is upbeat about Ghana getting increased funding for its climate change response.
He said Ghanaian negotiators at ongoing Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework convention on Climate Change (COP24) were determined to make strong case at the negotiations to enable the country to access more resources to fund its adaptation actions.
He added that such resources were critical to the implementation of the 31 major actions captured in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
“We are looking at whatever we can harness in terms of these negotiations which will help us to implement our NDCs in sectors such as forestry, agriculture, energy-low carbon electricity generation.”
He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the COP24, taking place in the Polish city of Katowice.
He said Ghana was looking forward to receiving significant support from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) “to enable us run some projects just as other African countries have been doing”.
Mr Pwamang, however, underlined the need to harness private sector investment to attract more resources from the global fund to help roll out the climate adaptation actions.
He noted that the developed countries at the conference were not making it secret their interest in mitigation issues because they were technology-based and a source of businesses for them.
“But we in Africa are more into the adaptation because we think that is where we can make better impact on our way of life.
As you know, we are not emitting much but we are actually suffering the effects of climate change.”
He said COP24 was the last meeting for the global community to actually plan for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and it was good that Ghana was in Katowice to be part of the global effort that was expected to come out with the implementation plan for the Paris Agreement.
“All the critical sectors in Ghana - transport, energy, agriculture, environment and others are present at the COP to ensure that the nation’s implementation interests are taken into consideration at the global conference.”
He said with this “when Ghana enters 2020, the 10-year period between 2020 and 2030, we can also make impact in trying to get our NDCs fully implemented - to ensure that we also meet the provisions of the Paris Agreement”.
Mr. Pwamang pointed out that the Government’s policies like the Planting for Food and Jobs and the One District One Factory were all vital programmes that were helping Ghana to address climate change impact in one way or the other.
The 13-day conference, attended by over 20,000 delegates from 190 countries, ends on Friday, December 14.
“Changing Together” is the theme chosen for the event.
The aim of COP24 climate summit is to agree a dense set of technical rules to underpin the Paris Agreement’s goals of limiting global warming to well below 2C, and ideally 1.5C, by the end of the century.
GNA
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