Ghana to Host 2019 Africa Climate Week in Accra

By Anita Nyarko-Yirenkyi

More than 1,000 participants across the world are expected to participate in the 2019 Africa Climate Week (ACW), to be hosted in Ghana next month.

The programme slated for March 18 to 22 at the Accra International Conference Centre is on the theme "Climate action in Africa: A race we can win."

The event would showcase the role of future carbon markets to enhance action toward the Sustainable Development Goals, and seek to facilitate the implementation of countries' nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goal 13.

In launching the programme in Accra yesterday, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng said hosting ACW would give Ghana opportunity to highlight its efforts in fighting climate change and enhance capacity to attract the needed investments into the country's climate actions.

The Minister said climate change was already happening all over the world including Ghana, adding that in the northern part of the country the dry seasons was becoming intense and prolonged.

He said the harmful effects included loss of vegetation cover, loss of farm and pasture land, increasing incidents of wild fires and drying water bodies.

"Along the coast, erosion from rising sea levels is a big problem, villages and towns are disappearing at an alarming rate. Farm and pasture lands are destroyed by sea water," he added

The Minister said the causes of climate change were as a direct result of human activities such as illegal mining activities that led to deforestation with the potential of affecting rainfall patterns.

He said the government was tackling climate change by adopting multi- sectorial climate preserving plans toward achievement of the objectives of the Paris agreement.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng said, he would engage in high level discussion with colleague African ministers, development partners and international investors on the strategies for mobilising adequate finance for implementation of national climate actions.

The Acting Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr John Pwamang said the AWC focuses on market-based approaches, economic instruments and climate aligned with finance to drive investments into climate actions.

He said the climate week was to assess performance of climate actions in all sectors especially those enshrined in Ghana's nationally determined contributions.

Mr Moukaila Mubarak of the Regional Collaboration Center (RCC) Lome for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in his remarks commended Ghana for the decision to host the AWC, stating that it would provide a platform for stakeholders in the industry to discuss issues on climate change.

Some of the activities to commemorate the occasion will include, Ghana day to showcase ground level action and possible areas of partnership, and exhibition to drive home climate solutions through innovation policies and projects among others.

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