Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and co-Chair of the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP), Samuel Abu Jinapor, MP, has pledged Ghana’s commitment to providing leadership for nature-based climate action.

He said the climate crisis requires collective action from all countries, and Ghana is ready to partner with other nations, both north and south, to promote nature-based climate action.

The Minister said this at the launch of the FCLP working group on Strengthening Supply and Demand of High-Integrity Forest Carbon Credits, on the sidelines of the Africa Climate Summit, underway in Nairobi, Kenya. The Summit is one of four regional climate summits to be held ahead of the twenty-eighth Conference of Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework on Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Speaking at the launch, which had in attendance the United States Presidential Envoy on Climate and Co-Chair of the FCLP, Secretary John Kerry, Mr. Jinapor said the Africa Climate Summit is timely, and must be an urgent call for all stakeholders to work together to address the climate crisis.

He said forests, which contribute a third of global climate solutions, are crucial to attaining the 1.5 degrees Celsius target. “The role of preserving, restoring, and sustainably managing our forests has become paramount in our global mission to mitigate the far-reaching impacts of climate change,” the Minister said.

He said the FCLP is committed to halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030, in accordance with the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. The Minister announced that a working group, co-led jointly by Ghana, Gabon, Guyana, and the United Kingdom, has been constituted to address High-Integrity Forest Carbon Credit Supply and Demand issues.

He said the Group will unveil a roadmap and strategy for fortifying and expanding forest carbon credits by COP28 and COP30, and will include mid-term actions to bolster high-integrity forest carbon finance and the announcement of forest carbon results-based finance transactions.

Mr. Jinapor said Ghana will continue to play a lead role in this Group and the broader FCLP, to accelerate nature-based climate action.

He called on all nations, and all stakeholders, to join hands with Ghana to usher in a new era of sustainable forest management and climate resilience for global climate action.