The Forestry Commission, under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, has signed Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (ERPA) with Emergent Forest Finance Accelerator Incorporated (Emergent), a US-based non-profit organisation that serves as the convenor and coordinator of the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition.

The agreement will see Ghana receiving payment of up to US$50,000,000.00 for emission reductions of up to five million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, at a unit price of US$10.00 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The Agreement which was signed on the sidelines of the COP28 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), made Ghana the first country, globally, to sign ERPA under the LEAF Coalition for the supply of high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ emission reductions and removals credit.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the signing of the Agreement at COP28 in Dubai, UAE, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel A. Jinapor revealed that the signing of the Agreement is further testament to Ghana’s focused efforts at revamping her forest landscape restoration fortunes with the right sustainability protocols.

He indicated that the importance of forest and nature-based solutions to climate change is critical at this crisis moment, and countries must scale up efforts to deliver on these solutions.

Mr. Jinapor noted that this new agreement will complement other interventions being implemented to halt climate change, such as the flagship Green Ghana Project, the Ghana Forest Plantation Strategy, and the Ghana REDD+ Strategy.

He explained that Ghana has already received result-based payments of more than US$4.8 million, under the Ghana Cocoa REDD+ Programme, and is implementing the Ghana Shea Landscape Restoration Programme with support from the Green Climate Fund.

Moreover, the lands minister stated that the new ERPA will help Ghana extend climate action to areas beyond her Carbon Fund area.

To this end, he called on the global community to come together to support actions towards forest restoration and protection.

“The time to act with speed and effectiveness against climate change is now. The time for partnership and collaboration in ramping up forest and nature-based climate action is, indeed, now… Let us, therefore, get on with this noble undertaking to save our planet.”
Samuel Jinapor

Forest and nature-based solutions to climate change

On his part, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Emergent, Mr. Eron Bloomgarden, congratulated Ghana for the feat chalked.

He underscored that the commitment and zeal of the team from Ghana ensured that an agreement was reached within a record time, making Ghana the first African country to sign such agreement.

The United Kingdom’s Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, Graham Stuart, also speaking on the transaction, indicated that halting tropical deforestation is critical to tackling climate change, and the commitment of forest countries like Ghana to protect natural ecosystems is commendable.

Additionally, the Minister for Climate and Environment of Norway, Hon. Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, said he was excited for Ghana and Costa Rica signing ERPA under the LEAF Coalition, and called on governments and the private sector to ramp up public and private finance for forest countries to partner with the LEAF Coalition to deliver high quality forest carbon.

Forest and nature-based solutions to climate change have been at the centre of successive COPs since 2021, as it has the potential to deliver up to a third of global climate solutions.

The LEAF Coalition was launched in April 2021 by the Governments of the United Kingdom, the United States and Norway, together with some leading global companies, as a voluntary global coalition to bring together companies and governments, to provide finance for tropical and subtropical forest conservation commensurate with the scale of the climate change challenge.

The Coalition aims to raise global climate ambition and contribute to halting tropical and subtropical deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, by ensuring that tropical and subtropical forest jurisdictions have access to large scale, predictable performance-based finance, to enable them to invest in reduced deforestation and sustainable rural development.

Following Call for Proposals, which thirty countries participated, and after the initial technical screening by a panel of experts, Ghana, Nepal and Ecuador were selected as the first countries to sign a Letter of Intent with the Coalition as a part of initial steps towards signing a binding ERPA to access funds from the Coalition.