Minister Guilbeault travels to Ghana and announces $20 million to help four African countries with data systems needed to fight climate change

ACCRA, Ghana, May 24, 2022 /CNW/ - From devastating droughts to deadly heatwaves, developing countries are some of the hardest hit by climate change, yet often have limited capacity to prevent and adapt to the effects. For people around the world, Canada continues to step up, supporting partner countries to take climate action, build resilience, and drive a clean energy future.   

Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, announced $20 million over four years to support four West African countries—Ghana, Liberia, The Gambia, and Togo—to help them build the capacity of their national climate measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems. MRV systems are a crucial step for nations to develop strong and effective mitigation policies and actions because they give governments transparent, accurate, and comparable information on emissions sources. This Canadian climate finance project administered by NovaSphere, a Canadian non-profit organization, will help countries track emission reduction progress as they work towards achieving their goals under the Paris Agreement.

The announcement was made at a bilateral meeting with the Honourable Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, and with the Honourable Benito Owusu-Bio, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources. Both Canada and Ghana are building a solid partnership with the shared goal of tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. This partnership has been further cemented by their ongoing co-leadership to ratify a new legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).

Minister Guilbeault's trip to Ghana provided an opportunity to understand the best ways international partners such as Canada can support their mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries, vital information for the G7 ministerial meetings this week in Germany as well as COP27 in Egypt in November, which will focus on climate change adaptation.  

Minister Guilbeault also met with Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, on climate finance and the role of multilateral development banks. A discussion with representatives of United Nations agencies and the World Bank provided insights into how multilateral organizations are supporting green economic development in West Africa. The Minister heard first-hand from the private sector how they are working to address plastic pollution and met with the Or Foundation, which works to promote the circular economy.

The Minister aso had many exchanges with researchers, youth, local non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders on important sustainability issues such as energy transition, biodiversity conservation, adaptation and resilience, smart agriculture, and forest conservation.

Quotes

"Ghana is one of many countries that are the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change. Canada will work alongside countries such as Ghana to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and today's announcement will provide new tools to do just that. I am immensely proud of the strong partnership we are building with Ghana on climate financing and on the creation of a legally binding global treaty on plastics. This trip has strengthened Canada's partnership with Ghana and deepened our understanding of how best to support developing nations with their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts."
– The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

"NovaSphere is honoured to be collaborating with the Government of Canada to support implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate governance with partner countries Ghana, Liberia, The Gambia, and Togo. NovaSphere will deploy targeted technical and financial support for climate governance to help build the capacity needed to establish effective and efficient measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems and to facilitate multi-sectoral coordination. It will also help enable partner countries to scale priorities and attract financing at levels needed to implement their respective NDCs, enhance ambition, and achieve transformational change."
– Tom Baumann, CEO of NovaSphere

• In support of the Paris Agreement objectives, in 2021, Canada announced a doubling of its international climate finance commitment to $5.3 billion over five years. Canada will focus this climate finance in four main areas: clean energy and coal phase-out, climate-smart agriculture and food systems, nature-based solutions and biodiversity, and climate governance.
• Under Canada's $5.3-billion international climate finance commitment, Canada will:
• Increase funding for adaptation to a minimum of 40 percent;
• Allocate at least 20 percent of funding to projects that leverage nature-based solutions and projects that contribute biodiversity benefits;
• Ensure that 80 percent of projects integrate gender equality considerations, in line with Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy.
• Continue supporting the transition to clean energy and the phasing-out of coal through significant investments, most notably with up to $1 billion for the Climate Investment Funds Accelerated Coal Transition Program.
• At the United Nations Environment Assembly 5.2 in Nairobi, Kenya, over 170 Member States agreed to a historic United Nations mandate aimed at ending plastic pollution globally. Ghana and Canada were co-facilitators of the plastics negotiations.
• NovaSphere is a Canadian-based non-profit organization with a mission to engage stakeholders and create solutions to climate change and unsustainability. NovaSphere has worked with over twenty countries on innovative governance and MRV solutions.

• Canada's international climate finance
  
  
• UN resolution to end plastic pollution

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