Let’s save our planet - Lands Minister demands

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources of Ghana, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has called for an urgent need for action to combat climate change and called for sustainable financing to save the planet.

Delivering a speech on the theme "Ghana's Path towards Net Zero and Zero Energy Poverty" at the ongoing Conference of Parties (COP28) hosted in Dubai by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), he shared the significant progress that has already been taken by Ghana.

He stated that, “over the past few years, we have had to expend our limited resources on the protection of our forests and the implementation of our aggressive afforestation and reforestation programme, including the flagship Green Ghana Project, under which some forty-two million (42,000,000) trees have been planted over the last three years, and the Ghana Forest Plantation Strategy, under which we have cultivated some six hundred and ninety thousand hectares (690,000 ha) of degraded forest in just five years”.

He added that under the Ghana Cocoa REDD+ Programme, Ghana has reduced emissions of nine hundred and seventy-two thousand, four hundred and fifty-six tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (972,456 tCO2e) for the first accounting period between June and December 2019, which has been verified and validated, generating a results-based payment of four million, eight hundred and sixty-two Thousand, Two Hundred and Eighty United States Dollars (US$4,862,280).

He pleaded forcefully that the urgency of climate finance, generally, and forest and nature finance, specifically, must be amplified because it is the most effective tool for achieving the one point five degrees Celsius (1.5oC) target set in the Paris Agreement.

Mr Jinapor reminded developed nations of the One Hundred Billion Dollars (US$100 billion) climate finance pledge made in Copenhagen at COP15 almost one and a half decades ago and the three billion US Dollars ($3 billion) as part of the United States’ President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) programme and cautioned that until these commitments are met, the world will not realize its target.

Mr Jinapor was hopeful in referencing the inspiring words of the United Nations Secretary-General, H.E. Antonio Guterres, that “the climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win.”