Samuel A. Jinapor in a chat with John Kerry
SAMUEL A. Jinapor, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, says Ghana remains committed to working with all partners to deliver forest and nature-based climate solutions to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target for people and planet.
The minister made this known when he joined Secretary John Kerry of the US, in the capacity as co-chairs of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.
Together with Secretary John Kerry, the Lands Minister held two separate meetings with Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to find ways of working together to achieve the ambitious objective of the FCLP to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030, whilst delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
The minister indicated that the meetings were very fruitful, adding that they were encouraged by the commitment of the IBC to work with the FCLP to achieve its objectives.
He also noted that achieving such high ambition of the FCLP, required that the teams worked closely with the major forest countries.
Already, together with Indonesia, Brazil and DRC, the minister said they have formed the Indonesia-Brazil-Congo (IBC) rainforest alliance, to protect their forests, adding that together, these three countries controlled over fifty per cent (50%) of global tropical forests, and were crucial to global efforts at halting deforestation.
Mr. Jinapor made a call for all efforts to be marshalled to fight climate change saying, “the climate crisis is reaching a tipping point, and requires all hands-on-deck approach to come to grips with this crisis.”
The delegation from Brazil was led by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, as the DRC delegation was led by the Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Environment, Eve Bazaiba Masudi.
The Amazon Rainforest is said to be the largest tropical rainforest in the world, and some sixty per cent (60%) of this tropical rainforest is found in the territories of Brazil. Also, the Congo Basin is the second largest rainforest in the world, and about sixty per cent (60%) of this is found in DRC’s territory.