Piecemeal laws hampering fight against climate change - Report

Ghana will need to invest between US$9.3 and US$15.5billion to implement the 47 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as key measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change by 2030, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said in its 2023 Ghana Climate Change Report.

The Department is however worried that despite the huge amount and efforts required to tackle growing concerns about the climate, the country does not have a comprehensive climate change legislation to guide it activities.

“With Ghana’s NDCs targets not enshrined in law, the rather piecemeal laws, regulations and policies across various sectors is also worrying,” the report said.

The report said though the country has shown a strong commitment to addressing climate change challenges through policy and action, it has conveyed to major donors that there is a need for additional financial assistance to address these issues.

Indeed, the country received an amount of US$776.5million from international donors between 2013 and 2017 to address climate change issues.

The three largest providers of climate change funding to Ghana are the European Union (EU), African Development Bank (AfDB) and United States government.

But the report indicated these funds predominantly targetted mitigation activities and was distributed across 405 projects in the country.

Also, an estimated 30 percent of the funds in this period came in the form of loans, as the country also received financing from the Green Climate Fund to implement four projects in the Northern Region.

However, these funding sources are insufficient to address all the climate change needs in the country.

The USDA is therefore concerned that agriculture and livestock, two of the sectors most impacted by weather-related threats, are already being exposed by effects of climate change.

The report disclosed that climate change is already affecting the country’s water resources, as flood exposure is projected to result in damages worth US$160million annually.

The USDA said the country will continue to get warmer, with mean temperatures projected to increase by 1.0°C to 3.0°C by 2050 and by 2.3°C to 5.3°C by end of the century. The Department also noted that projected warming will likely occur faster in the drier northern areas than coastal regions.

The document said development of the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) in 2013, the Renewable Energy Master Plan, ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, signing onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and membership of the Green Climate Fund are all major commitments to the fight.