Kick-starting the 40-year development planning in Ghana

Nii Armah Kweifio-Okai

September 17, 2015

Two important UN summits take place this year — the sustainable development plenary meeting of the General Assembly in New York September 25-27 and the UN summit on climate change in Paris in December.

Ghana is taking part in both summits and would be legally bound by any collective agreements she signs off on. Would it not be neat if Ghana approaches both summits with the view of incorporating the ensuing agreements in our proposed 40-year development plan after Parliament has ratified them?

This would achieve several important ends — streamline aspects of the work of the National Development Planning Commission in compiling the plan, provide the legal basis for binding future Governments to those aspects of the plan, and provide a framework and impetus for formulating country specific priorities and objectives.

Indeed the Foreign Minister Hon Hannah Tetteh has foreshadowed incorporation of agreed sustainable development goals in New York into the proposed 40-year development plan. See http://www.ghananewsagency.org/social/ghana-incorporates-post-2015-agenda-in-development-plan--94440

The approach to the sustainable development goals can be replicated for the climate change conference in Paris later this year. The 17 sustainable development goals Ghana would be signing off on is at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.  Out of those 17 sustainable development goals, only the 13th goal directly relates to the climate change conference in Paris in December. It states: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” while “acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change”.

There are compelling reasons why Ghana should play an active role at the climate change summit in Paris later this year.

Firstly the countries that caused green house gas emissions during the industrial revolution are also the most vocal in urging mitigation of GHG emissions today, including shouldering part of the burden, while not as much affected by climate change as developing countries are.

Secondly it is more in our interest. The countries who did not cause the current global warming are also those most dependent on agriculture, most vulnerable to vector borne diseases and least economically able to cope with the havoc of climate change. Therefore reduction in GHG emissions would most benefit those developing countries especially equatorial Pacific, Africa and South East Asia who are most affected by the current global warming.

Climate change is periodically framed as a moral issue, as a human rights issue i.e. the obligation of the polluter to the polluted; the justification of developing countries to lift themselves out of poverty through further GHG emissions. On the latter we need to visit some frightening statistics.

Firstly the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) tells us that by mid century (2050) we should not exceed atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration of 450 parts per million, at which concentration we should expect temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial temperatures. But we all know that at the current atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration of 400 parts per million, we are already experiencing severe effects of climate change e.g. El Nino (heat waves and drought) and El Nina (greater storms and flooding) in the equatorial Pacific including the pacific coast of South America, equatorial Africa and south East Asia. El Nino photos of current devastation to agriculture/livestock in Papua New Guinea, ahead of expected El Nina events can be seen at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-29/drought-frost-in-png-causing-food-crisis-photos/6732740 and the narrative at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-01/villagers-facing-food-shortages-as-el-nino-brings-drought-frost/6740160.

Secondly, the current major emitters of GHGs are the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China, who at current rates of emissions would account for well over 50% of global emissions by 2050. See http://www.aph.gov.au/ About_

Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/0809/

ClimateChange

 It is estimated that by 2050 the BRIC countries would reach the accumulated emissions of the 30 most developed nations since the beginning of the Industrial revolution. We should therefore not fall in the trap of “It is the turn of the BRIC countries, or for that matter other developing countries, to emit vast quantities of GHGs in their development” when we are already experiencing the effects of climate change and when the consequences of additional emissions are not confined to those countries.

Opportunities

1. There has never been greater consensus at the global/transnational level on any pressing topic than on climate change. Global reciprocity — the more or less subjugation of national interest in favour of universal human rights, is more extensively observed in climate change negotiations. Likely because the stakes are high for all nations — those with huge fossil fuel reserves or investments, those using fossil fuel for faster economic growth and those most affected . Ghana belongs to the latter, which provides opportunity for good global citizenship through joining the effort to achieve global consensus on climate change mitigation

2. The target date in the climate change treaty negotiation is mid century 2050. That for the sustainable development goals is earlier but no earlier than 2030. Conveniently, both targets fall within, and can be conveniently accommodated in, the proposed 40-year development plan.

I see the two UN summits — on sustainable development and climate change mitigation, as opportunities to populate our proposed 40-year development plan as well as enhancing Ghana’s image as a good global citizen, aside her positive contributions to the summits themselves, her continued UN activities and initiatives and her long involvement in UN peace keeping duties involving 25% the Ghanaian military in the past 25 years.

Nii Armah Kweifio-Okai

September 17, 2015