Accra, Dec 19 – Mr Kyekyeku Yaw
Oppong-Boadi, National Focal Person for the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has described the 23rd conference of Parties held in
Bonn as successful.
He explained that Ghana engaged
in bilateral agreements with German government, Executive Director of Green
Climate Fund (GCF) Board aimed at getting support.
He said Ghana’s delegation of
about 70 who were in Bonn had negotiators following up on various elements and
were also able to build skills, negotiate in all areas and also met with the
GCF Secretariat.
Mr Oppong-Boadi explained to the
Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra that Ghana was also recognised by
G77 and China as a major and negotiating group and had been given a position to
negotiate on national adaptation plans.
He said COP23 came as an
aftermath of COP22 which took place in Marrakech, North Africa in which there
was a global call for climate action so parties on the UNFCCC saw the need to
implement all elements in Paris Agreement- mitigation, adaptation, capacity
building and finance.
The National Focal Person noted
that for adaptation and mitigation to be implemented, the enablers in the form
of finance, capacity building and technology transfer are needed and so “at
COP23 we were to negotiate for the implementation of these elements so that we
can achieve 1.5 degrees celcius or 1.2 degrees celcius.”
The science of climate change is
such that if 1.5 degrees celcius or 2 degrees celcius is achieved, global
atmosphere in terms of rainfall eco-system, water cycle, carbon dioxide would
stabilise and improve food production and inclusive economic development or
enhanced livelihood.
Mr Oppong-Boadi explained that
the country was faced with two major challenges, drought and floods which were
of concerns as far as climate change was concerned.
As a result, Ghana, he said was
committed to the Paris Agreement (PA) and has prepared Nationally Determined
Contributions because the country had ratified and signed the PA.
The PA, is an agreement within
the UNFCCC dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and
finance starting in the year 2020.
It aims to respond to the global
climate change threat by keeping a global temperature rise this century well
below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to
limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius
The National Focal Person said
agricultural and industrial sectors were growing faster and so efforts were
being made to reduce emissions through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and Deforestation (REDD+) and plantation development.
REDD+ which is reducing emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation,
sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in
developing countries (REDD+) was first negotiated under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2005, with the objective of
mitigating climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases
through enhanced forest management in developing countries
Mr Oppong-Boadi noted that in the
area of agriculture, Ghana was undertaking smart agriculture, green growth and
also making efforts to reduce emissions from transport and was also promoting
renewable through solar and has passed an Act on renewable energy, adding that
there were programmes of improved landscape and they were also working out
plans to store date.
Ghana needs both technical and
financial support, adding that Ghana has been under taking climate change
programmes in road sector and other sectors. Annex 1 countries are to support
with finance for climate change activities and projects.
He said long term financing which
was agreed upon at COP15 in Copenhagen was also picked in Paris and the African
position is that climate change funding should be separated from development
funds.
He noted however that there were
divergent views between the developed and developing countries with regards to
article 9 of PA where the African group of negotiators wanted to define a
method of providing quantitative and qualitative assessment of the financial
flow.
Contentious issues with regards
to adaptation fund were discussed and parties negotiated that the fund should
be placed under the PA and will be an issue to be picked up in COP24, in 2018
in Poland.
During the closing ceremony, the
African negotiators said the adaptation fund should be considered
He also explained that at COP23 a
lot of annex 1 countries who did not sign the Doha amendment in which countries
have to sign for the amount of emissions they will agree to reduce did so this
time around.
The Focal Person said currently
the emissions level that countries had pledged would set global temperature to
about 5C meaning there had not been any ambitious efforts to bring it down.
“This calls for countries to
undertake monitoring, reporting and verification to ensure that we built trust
on all that we are doing.By 2018 there will be a global stock to see whether
countries are meeting their targets.”
On mitigation, he said Ghana was
on the group to oversee that countries were meeting their targets
“Ghana needs to improve on
research base to include researchers and lawyers on its negotiations and also
form a team of experts to climate change project proposals to donors. The
country also needs to enhance gender participations as well as the media.”
GNA
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