The Director of Research at the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Mr Richard Tweneboah Kodua, has called upon stakeholders to improve public education across the nation in order to safeguard the environment and promote a shift towards low-carbon, climate-resilient economic growth.
He stressed the critical importance of cooperation among stakeholders and the Commission to address the threats posed by climate change to land, rivers, wildlife, crops, individuals, and their livelihoods within the country.
Speaking at a national inception workshop that brought stakeholders together to dialogue and recommend long-term strategies for low-emission development in Accra yesterday, Mr Kodua highlighted that the Commission had a crucial role in integrating climate change considerations into national planning and requires support from stakeholders.
He said the NDPC had already included climate change indicators in the national results framework and coordinates the preparation of sectoral and national annual progress reports, which encompass national development planning and budgeting processes.
“We are, therefore, proud of what Ghana has accomplished today, in collaboration with all the stakeholders, with the support of the 2050 Pathways Platform. A national effort to develop a long-term low-emission development strategy in line with the national development plan is becoming a reality. We officially joined the 2050 Pathways Platform in July 2023. The initial work, supported by 2050PP, included drafting Ghana’s Long-Term Low Greenhouse Gas Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) Readiness Report, conducting stakeholder and policy mapping, and a gap analysis in early 2024,” he elaborated.
Furthermore, Mr Kodua noted that as a result of these preliminary efforts, Ghana now had an approved annotated outline of the national LT-LEDS and a set of proposals for its effective formulation.
The Minister in charge of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, mentioned that in line with the national framework, Ghana participated in the 2050 Pathways Annual Meeting at the 58th Session of the Subsidiary Body for Science and Technology Advice in Bonn, Germany, in 2023.
He explained that during the meeting, Ghana agreed to engage in long-term low-carbon development with the 2050 Pathways Platform, which seeks to develop a national long-term strategy to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
“The Paris Agreement commits all parties to promote and work towards long-term low-emission development strategies to provide quantifiable information on mitigation visions, strategies and targets for up to and beyond 2050, aligned with Nationally Determined Contributions.
“As a party to the Paris Agreement, Ghana is obliged to develop and implement long-term mitigation actions that reflect national priorities and initiatives that can easily be supported by development partners and other implementing agencies,” he remarked.
The Director and Head of Climate Change at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Felix Addo Okyireh, said historically, October marked the end of the minor rainy season in southern Ghana, but in recent years, there had been an increase in heavy and severe rainfall events, sometimes resulting in localised flooding which has been linked to climate change.
“The Ghana Meteorological Agency has forecasted normal rainfall for most parts of the country in October 2025. This is characterised by climate change, which is due to an increase in emissions of CO₂, among others, in the atmosphere, a heat-trapper, retaining much heat on the Earth’s surface, causing global warming and climate change and its impacts,” he indicated.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN & CHRISTABEL D. ANKRAH
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