Ghana now has a legal framework backing its participation in carbon market projects, the Deputy Director in charge of the Climate Change Unit at the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST), Mohammed Gyimah, has said.
That, he explained, followed the incorporation of a carbon market framework into a new EPA Act, 2025 (Act 1124), which was passed early this year.
Mr Gyimah was sharing with participants at the Korea-Africa Environmental Cooperation forum 2025 on progress made so far, when the Paris Roadbook was finally adopted during a panel discussion.
Other members of the panel were Assistant Commissioner, Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda, Muhammed Semambo, and a Director of the Ministry of Environment, Korea, Mino Kim.
The panellists were speaking on the topic, “Harnessing carbon markets for climate resilience in Africa: Opportunities, challenges and pathways for sustainable development.”
Forum
The event organised by the Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI) was on the theme, “Climate change – Africa’s approach towards resilience, adaptation and coping strategies.”
It was attended by representatives from six other African countries such as Senegal, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Egypt and Tanzania, high-level officials from Korea and government officials from Ghana.
Other progress made
Mr Gyimah said aside from the incorporation of the framework into a new EPA Act, Act 1124, another significant progress made was the signing of bilateral agreements with Singapore, Switzerland and Sweden.
Additionally, he said the ministry was currently at the very last meeting with the government of Korea and that the agreement was with the Attorney General.
“We expect that there will soon be a specific timeline which will be submitted to the government for approval,” he explained, adding that Ghana was also in discussions with another country in that direction.
Projects
The MEST Deputy Director in charge of the Climate Change unit said in terms of projects, Ghana had so far onboarded about 68 projects, estimated at about $850 million to $1.5 billion of added investment.
Mr Gyimah explained that a large part of the amount was expected to go into adaptation, as part of Ghana’s participation in carbon market issues.
He announced that the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) was currently undertaking an important project where “we are looking at carbon-based associated adaptation action.
“For us, we see carbon markets, initiated by AFB, as a positive tool that can propel the African idea of not seeing education as the opposite of adaptation, and how to build those resources,” he stated.
Korea’s policy
Speaking on South Korea's policy on climate change, Ms Kim said like many other countries around the world, Korea had been suffering from extreme rainfall, drought and forest fires.
She said the Korean Ministry of Environment would advance the prediction systems, reinforce infrastructures, and alert the public to prevent casualties.
“Fundamentally, the Korean government will promote decarbonisation in the power generation sector early, converting a renewable energy-oriented energy mix, and strengthen the functions of the emission market to support companies to reduce greenhouse gases,” Ms Kim added.
Transformative tool
On how carbon markets can become a transformative tool for financing target resilience in Africa, Mr Semambo said in Africa, the priority in terms of climate change was agriculture in most of the countries.
He said while being an adaptation first country, “Uganda also sees that we possess the greatest potential of carbon substitution mechanisms.”
Mr Semambo said his country had great potential to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adding that even though Uganda did not have adequate resources to address the adaptation needs, it had the potential in terms of carbon substitution.
