Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, says the government is committed to implementing solutions to manage climate risk and to ensure climate resilience.
He said, through the Global Shield against Climate Risk and Global Risk Modelling Alliance (GRMA) initiative, government would have a more substantially pre-arranged and trigger-based finance against disasters and climate risks.
The finance minister said this at the launch of the Global Shield against Climate Risks and the Global Risk Modelling Alliance initiative which sought to promote greater financial protection, faster reliable disaster preparedness and response to address losses and damages caused by climate change.
He said Ghana, like many other nations, faced significant climate risks that threaten our environment, our economy, and the well-being of our people, therefore, the cost of climate change to Ghana cannot be understated.
“To build a climate-resilient economy and transition to a low-carbon development pathway, it is imperative that we make informed decisions based on reliable data at both the national and subnational levels to minimise the impact of climate change and enable development-positive climate action,” Mr Ofori-Atta
He said ‘we could identify specific vulnerabilities within our local and regional contexts and design targeted interventions to enhance resilience.
“Accurate information regarding climate risks is vital for identifying vulnerable areas, designing appropriate adaptation strategies, and allocating resources effectively,” he said.
He said Data-driven decision making would enable Ghana to prioritise interventions, mobilise financial resources, and implement timely solutions to manage climate risks whilst making the data readily available to investors, both domestic and international for new investments in Ghana and the sub-region.
Dr Kweku Afriyie, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI), said developed countries needed to work and rebuild trust with developing countries to deliver on their climate finance commitment.
He said closing the gap was an important step to restoring trust in climate finance and was also needed to ensure that countries could implement their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs).
“Ghana for instance will be unable to reduce its emission reduction by 64 million tons nor build resilience in priority sectors including water, agriculture, restoring our biodiversity, and health if we do not receive the needed resource,” Dr Afriyie said.
He said Floods were destroying coastal communities and making them lose lives and property, compounding their poverty status and farmers up north were unable to receive the expected yields after toiling through the cropping season.
Dr Afriyie said the establishment of a dedicated international funding commitment and mechanisms to address climate change loss and damage must be established and operational.
He said Global Shield against Climate Risk, and Global Risk Modelling Alliance would help increase protection for climate-vulnerable economies like Ghana and communities by providing substantially more and better pre-finance against disasters and climate risks.
“Ghana will continue to stand together with other Climate Vulnerability Forum (CVF), Countries at the frontline of the global discourse on climate change,” he said.
The GRMA is geared to support strategic decision-making and help unlock risk finance for public good, creating links to early warning systems and creating social protection systems as disbursement mechanism.