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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Charting climate ambition: Ghana prepares to update her NDCs

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In 2016, Ghana was one of seven African countries that submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), after the coming into force of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change also known as the Paris Climate Accords or L’Accord de Paris. It is an international instrument on climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance.

Ghana
The NDC 2.0 Stocktaking Lead Consultant, Ebenezer Appah-Sampong

The Agreement mandates the 195 members to review and enhance their NDCs every five years with more ambitious climate actions for the next five-year cycle, for submission to the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). So, the review of the initially submitted NDCs resulted in the development of what is now referred to as NDC 2.0.

Ghana’s commitment under NDC 2.0

Under her 2021 NDC 2.0, Ghana committed to implementing 47 climate actions with 34 focused on mitigation and 13 on adaptation across key sectors such as energy, agriculture, transport, forestry, water, health, waste management, and infrastructure. These actions are expected to result in emissions reductions of about 64 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) between 2021 and 2030.

Beyond emissions reductions, the country’s NDCs also highlight significant co-benefits, including the prevention of approximately 2,900 premature deaths annually due to air pollution and the creation of over one million green jobs, especially targeting women and youth. It is estimated that full execution of Ghana’s NDCs will require between USD 9.3 billion and USD 15.5 billion by 2030. Mobilizing this support domestically and internationally remains a critical challenge.

Stocktaking towards NDC 3.0

In accordance with the NDCs review process, Ghana has since May 2025 commenced a comprehensive stocktaking process to review the implementation of her NDCs 2.0 submitted in 2021. The process is led by the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) and the Climate Change Unit of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

The Lead Consultant for the NDC 2.0 Stocktaking, Ebenezer Appah-Sampong says the process is evaluating progress made since the adoption of NDC 2.0 in 2021 and identify implementation challenges and propose corrective measures. The process, which is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will further assess alignment with national priorities and international commitments.

Additionally, exercise will pave the way for the formulation of a new five-year climate action plan, NDC 3.0, which will guide national climate targets and efforts up to 2035 in line with the common time frame under the Paris Agreement Decision 1/cp.21 paragraph 24. This, sets out the modalities for progress reporting as well as commends countries for their initiatives and progress made in implementing actions.

Engagement with the non-state actors’ group

Ebenezer made this known at a recent non-state actors’ engagement in Accra that brought together civil society organizations (CSOs), gender and youth groups, private sector actors, and climate experts to solicit inputs into the ongoing assessment. It was jointly facilitated by the Kasa Platform and the Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND) through the CSOs SDG 13 Platform.

The gathering on the last day of June, was underscored by the significant contribution of this group of stakeholders to the overall attainment of Ghana’s national climate goals. Thus, the engagement served as part of the broader participatory approach designed to ensure that Ghana’s climate commitments are inclusive, responsive, and aligned with both national development priorities and global climate goals.

Ebenezer summarized key areas of the stocktaking as including a comprehensive review of progress across all the 47 climate actions; an evaluation of institutional arrangements and policy coherence; and alignment checks with national development strategies, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), REDD+ frameworks, and biodiversity commitments. Others are an analysis of how gender and just transition considerations have been integrated; and use of the SDG–Climate Action Nexus (SCAN) tool to assess linkages between climate actions and SDG targets.

He outlined the main expected outputs of the exercise as the NDC Implementation Diagnostic Report to track sectoral progress and implementation bottlenecks; a Stakeholder Consultation Report documenting inclusive engagement efforts; and the NDC Implementation Tracker to provide a detailed matrix of progress, challenges and responsible institutions. The others outputs are a Policy and Institutional Assessment Report highlighting systemic gaps and offering strategic recommendations; and a set of Integrated Recommendations for NDC 3.0, shaped by stakeholder inputs ad technical analysis.

With climate change already affecting rainfall patterns, agricultural productivity, and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events in Ghana, stakeholders at the workshop emphasized the urgency of a more robust and inclusive climate agenda.

In an interview after the event, the West Africa Coordinator of the African Climate Reality Project, Salomey Adjei stated: “The review process must not be just a technical exercise, but a political and social commitment to securing our present and common future.

The Lead Consultant’s next schedule is to hold a two-day assessment workshop to validate the implementation progress. This would be followed by a National Validation Workshop to finalise the draft reports expected to be ready by the 19th of July, 2025.

Looking ahead

Ghana’s efforts come at a time when countries globally are being urged to raise their climate ambition ahead of the 2025 UN climate conference (COP30) in Brazil. As a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Ghana is expected to submit its new climate plan in line with the decision adopted at COP24 mandating that all future NDCs should cover a common five-year timeframe.

As Ghana moves toward developing and finalizing its NDC 3.0, there are strong calls for deepened stakeholder engagement, strategic investment in green jobs, stronger regional alliances and increased national budgetary support for implementation of actions.

Civil society actors are also looking forward to seeing NDC 3.0 incorporating the mining sector, due to its massive impacts on prioritized mitigation and adaptation actions sectors such as forest, agriculture, water and ultimately, land – the major cross cutting sector.

Does this mean that Ghana has to choose between climate action and mineral wealth? That might be required. This is because with smart policy, responsible investment, and inclusive planning, the nation can handle both climate action and mineral wealth, and become a model for green development in Africa.

Therefore, the coming months will be critical as the government, in collaboration with UNDP and other stakeholders, consolidates the diagnostic findings into actionable priorities for the next five-year climate action framework.

The successful implementation of NDC 3.0 actions will depend to a large extent on improved institutional coordination, better financing mechanisms, increased transparency, and stronger stakeholder ownership – particularly among civil society, local governments, and communities at the frontline of climate impacts and exploiting for mineral wealth.

By Ama Kudom-Agyemang

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