The government welcomes partnerships between institutions to collaborate to develop emissions reduction projects in Ghana.
These partnerships can help to obtain carbon flux data on this semi-deciduous forest within the transitional zone in real-time.
The Minister for Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, said this during the commissioning of the Bia Tano Forest International Greenhouse Gas Monitoring and Global Climate Research station at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Earth Observation Research and Innovation Centre in Sunyani last Wednesday.
He stated that the collaborations would strengthen Ghana’s annual report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s underlying greenhouse gas inventory management and Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems (IPCC).
“The successful implementation of these policies enhances the government’s access to funding opportunities from the Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use (AFOLU) carbon projects to support national development,” he added.
Dr Afriyie noted that the government was implementing 13 adaptation and 34 mitigation programmes to mitigate climate change impact in the country.
According to him, this climate action will result in absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of 64 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO).
He explained that the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) include about 47 climate change adaptation and mitigation measures that represent countries’ efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
These measures are consistent with Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, which calls for keeping global temperatures below 2.0 degrees Celsius. He added that the interim NDCs sought to advance climate-responsive food production systems, reduce deforestation, and restore landscapes.
The Bia Tano station is a collaborative scientific research project between UENR, the Czech Global Change Research Institute (CzechGlobe), and other governmental organizations such as the Ghana Forestry Commission and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG).
It will be in charge of taking direct measurements of forest-atmosphere exchanges of carbon dioxide, water, energy and other trace gases, allowing the University to monitor the entire forest ecosystem metabolism (including soil measurements).
The station will also allow the University to quantify the role of forests as sources of trace gases, the input of gaseous pollutants and nutrients, and the role of the country’s tropical forests in cleaning the atmosphere through carbon uptake from the atmosphere.
Irene Wirekoaa Osei, ISD
