General News of Saturday, 11 November 2017

Source: ghananewsagency.org

Ghana well represented at Bonn

Flag of Ghana Flag of Ghana

More participants continue to arrive at the COP 23 in Bonn, Germany with various environmental organisations and interest groups still discussing climate change mitigation measures within both closed and open door meetings.

The various parties and negotiators, including Ghana’s contingents of technocrats and officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission are all participating in the COP23.

Ghana’s Environment and Science Minister, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng and Mines and Natural Resources Minister, Mr John Peter Amewu, together with Mr Peter Abum Sarkodie, the Executive Director of the EPA are expected to be at the Bonn conference next week.

They two ministers are expected to participate in a ministerial conference that would give many state ministers the platform to deliberate environmental issues and also sign unto some bilateral relations with partner countries.

COP23, being hosted by the Republic of Fiji as the chair of the event, and being supported by the German Government, opened on Monday Nov. 6, and it would close on Friday, November 17.

It is featuring various plenary meetings and core meetings of groups of the Convention and Protocol bodies and many more events around the topics of the COP all across Bonn and its surroundings.

There are other side events involving activists and actors who gather at one side within the Bula Zone on the UN Campus in Bonn, as well as the Bonn Zone, which is further apart, to make comments and statements on the need to accelerate actions in cutting down emissions and committing further to mitigate climate change impact, especially on vulnerable countries like Fiji and other island countries; and also on Africa.

Delegates around the globe are hoping to ensure greater momentum for the Paris Agreement and to raise the level of ambition needed to address global warming at the two week-event.