350-GROC builds capacity of CSOs on Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions

Some selected members from various Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working in the energy sector of the country have benefited under a day sensitization workshop focused on Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The workshop dubbed: “Renewable Energy For Communities Dialogue on Ghana’s NDC’s” was initiated by 350 Ghana Reducing Our Carbon (G-ROC), an NGO.

The forum was an avenue to build capacities of civil societies in the energy sector of the country to be able to identify the gaps and equally make inputs into the Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) review process which is currently ongoing in the country.

According to Mrs. Portia Adu-Mensah, the move to organize the workshop emanates from the desire to leverage on the Renewable Energy For Communities Campaign (#Re4C), an initiative her outfit is exploring to promote the use of renewable energy in the country particularly within rural communities in order to help create the needed awareness about the Ghana’s NDC’s on how the government and Civil Societies can explore ways to make it achievable.

“Last year, we took the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) of the various five (5) districts in the country and we were able to train and sensitize the district about it, so this year we want to go national but make sure that we disseminate the NDC’s as an advocacy group and get people to appreciate and understand Ghana’s NDC’s and why we all need to be involved”.

The participants outnumbering fifteen (15) were taken through a presentation on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) and its gap analysis.

There were also two breakout sessions, one for questions and answers and the second one which witnessed the participants conduct a group exercise to identify the gaps within Ghana’s NDC’s and make inputs which would be submitted to the government for further deliberations to be considered during the ongoing review process in the country.

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and the achievement of these long-term goals. They embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change. The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires each party to prepare, communicate, and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. Parties shall pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions.

In his presentation, representative of 350 Ghana, Richard Matey noted that the beauty of the NDCs is unique in a sense that countries themselves have already committed to achieving certain actions which comes with financial flows to help support the technology, the mitigation and the capacity building bid including other actions that would help promote the achievement of the NDCs.

While painting a picture about the global arena, he indicated that a careful look at 192 countries in the world today which have ratified the NDCs, one is likely to find out certain key areas of which Energy dominates the list making number one priority followed by Waste which is about 75%, Agriculture pegged at 74% before Land Use and Forestry also making 73% together with other areas contributing to 44% of actions that are going to be taken under the various NDCs.

Juxtaposing the above with Ghana’s situation, he quickly said: “so when we look at our country Ghana, we have put forward mitigation and adaptation actions into our NDCs and these are actions that resonates with our 40 year development plan, the SDGs and also our Medium Term Development Plan and currently there’s an ongoing process to develop a new medium term development plan which would expand from 2022-2025”.

He furthered: “so these are areas we can ensure that NDCs actions that we have committed to as a country, we integrate it into new plan because these actions that we’ve submitted already resonates with the current Medium Term Development Plan which is ending this year so we have to ensure that the process continue in the next phase”.

For his part, Programs Officer at Civic Response, Elvis Oppong sharing his concern on why he thinks Ghana would be lagging behind in meeting its obligations under the NDCs, he indicated that the currently requires an amount of 22.6 billion as an estimated amount needed to meet the actions it has listed under its NDCs.

He further explained that even though the NDCs come in two portions; the conditional and the unconditional, it would be difficult for Ghana to make a headway without relying on donor support looking at the huge resources at stake which might be difficult for the country to afford.

He identified the cutting down of donor funding as a major gap being exacerbated by the global pandemic including the geopolitical issues and therefore called on the developed nations to show their solidarity by honoring their promises to ensure adequate funding trickled down to aid the developing nations to also fulfil their pledges towards achievement of their actions under the NDCs.

Among the various gaps identified by the participants during the meeting, one of the emerging issues which popped up was that Government is already coming out with policies and giving incentives to people to resort to the use of solar energy in their houses, offices etc. which is an indication that they have been taken off the national grid for good yet they have not been captured in the NDCs.

Read: PPP Sends Impressive Message to Ghanaians

Their suggestion was that the government should come out with a reporting framework to encourage individuals who have taken themselves out of the national grid to effectively report as a way of contributing their quota to the achievement of Ghana’s NDCs.

Source:Joseph Kobla Wemakor