Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and a Switzerland official exchanging documents
​Ghana and Switzerland have signed a bilateral agreement as a framework for the implementation of Article Six of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
After two years of negotiations between the two countries, the signing of the framework agreement on Monday marks the first of its kind in Africa and second in the world.
It is expected to allow Swiss and Ghanaian companies to invest in green businesses and mutually share sustainable development and emission reduction outcomes.
With this agreement, Ghana will receive finance from the Swiss side for sustainable development projects while Switzerland takes carbon credits from Ghana for the emissions cuts to meet its climate commitments without compromising Ghana’s effort to achieve climate actions.
The negotiations between technical teams of Ghana and Switzerland were further boosted by a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Bern during the State visit to Switzerland by President Akufo-Addo in February, 2020.
​Article six of the Paris Agreement on carbon markets is an innovative voluntary instrument available to countries to mobilize finance and help private sector investments for the implementation of nationally determined contributions.
The signing of the cooperation agreement did not only demonstrate the existing good relations between both countries, but it also highlighted the firm resolve of Ghana and Switzerland to take early action to mitigate climate change and contribute to the realization of the desired global goal of two degrees temperature reduction as indicated by the Paris Agreement.
In Ghana, the National Clean Energy Access Programme (NCEP), which will be implemented under the agreement, is expected to lead to the transfer of mitigation outcomes known as Internal Transfer of Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) to Switzerland in exchange for financial resources and the extension of Swiss technical knowhow as a demonstration of the scalability of Ghana’s conditional mitigation commitments.
Within the cooperation between Ghana and Switzerland, the focus would be to increase renewable energy usage through the use of energy efficient cook stoves in homes and enhanced waste management, among others.
​ Ghana and Switzerland have identified practical ways of operating the envisaged architecture of Article six of the Paris Agreement and have established a flexible framework to systematically generate, transfer and recognize international mitigation outcomes by both countries.
In Ghana the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the host of the implementation process, would roll out the process through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Closely associated to the realization of the agreement had been the support extended by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the process as well as the important roles to be played by the Private Enterprise Foundation of Ghana and the Association of Ghanaian Banks in providing the enabling knowledge and financial resources respectively to the private sector, the ultimate up-takers.
By Melvin Tarlue