Ghana aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 10 million tonnes in the cocoa-forest landscape from 2020 onwards, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.
This, he said, would be done through the implementation of the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme, one of five ecological landscape-tailored programmes in Ghana’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) Strategy.
He said this when he participated in the World Leader’s Summit on protecting the world’s forests and oceans, held on the sidelines of United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties ( COP 26) ongoing here.
REDD+ is a United Nations-backed framework that aims to curb climate change by stopping the destruction of forests.
The Summit, a special session of the 12-day global conference, which has brought together 30,000 delegates from across the globe to discuss climate actions on the theme ‘Keeping 1.5 alive; ensuring it is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”
According to President Akufo-Addo, Ghana, through her Nationally Determined Contributions in the forestry sector, was committed to supporting the global target of halving emissions by 2030, and attaining neutrality by 2050.
He also announced that the country had begun preparations to plant a minimum of 20 million trees, next year as part of efforts to address deforestation and forest degradation.
Describing deforestation and forest degradation as the “greatest challenges to sustainable forest management” in Ghana, the President stated that Ghana has, in the course of the last two decades, adopted several policies and programmes, such as National Forest Plantation Development Programme and the Ghana Forest Plantation Strategy, aimed at restoring her lost forest.
“In June this year, I led the entire country, through the Green Ghana Project, to plant over seven million trees, far above the five million we had targeted. Next year, we aim to plant a minimum of twenty million trees, and we have already begun earnest preparations towards this,” he added.
On oceans, President Akufo-Addo reiterated the country’s commitment to managing sustainably her ocean, as the historic Transformation Document that was launched in December last year enjoins the country to do adding that the country was putting in place the requisite structures and processes to finalise her Sustainable Ocean Plan by 2025.
“The pressing threats we face are marine security, due to the prevalence of piracy and armed robbery on our seas, the mounting menace of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported fishing (IUU), overfishing and its attendant decline in fish stocks, and plastic pollution,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo said as Ghana deal with these challenges, in partnership with the United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea, it was also conducting an Ocean Governance Study to help strengthen the legal and institutional framework for ocean management.
In addition, the President noted that to help reduce the excessive pressure, over-exploitation and to replenish Ghana’s falling marine fish stocks, Ghana was implementing a closed season for artisanal and industrial finishing.
“The results have been a phenomenal success, and we intend to continue to implement this policy with huge positive dividends over the medium-term. We must leverage our collective political influence, build strong partnerships with business leaders and influencers in civil society to drive effectively the implementation of the Transformations Document by all countries,” he added.
FROM JONATHAN DONKOR, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
