International Telecommunication Union (ITU) / Ghana experiences in National Planning for ICTs, Climate

Change and Development

Mrs Helen Asiamah Deputy Director

Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana

Population – 24mio @ 2010 2.7% annual growth rate

Ratified UNFCCC and KP. Submitted NC1 & NC2 to UNFCCC in 2000 and 2011 respectively

Mining Oil and GasOil and Gas Cocoa Agriculture (GDP- 42%)

Agriculture (GDP- 42%)

Services (GDP

ICT – 7%)

Major economic development sectors

Economic cost of environmental degradation estimated at 9% of GDP (World Bank)

Negative Impacts of Climate Change on vulnerable economic sectors – agriculture, coastal zone, health, energy production, Infrastructure (ICT) etc.

Economy – average 13% GDP growth per annum (2011 est.)

National Development Blue Print Ghana Shared Growth & Development Agenda

National Climate Change Policy Framework

Electricity generation – 50%:40% mix. hydro + thermal + RE (Renewable energy bill passed)

Climate-related information (1 of 1)

Total GHG emission is estimated to be 24MtCO2e. Equivalent of 1tCO2e per capita.

Energy, Agriculture and Land use change and forestry are the sources of GHG.

Energy production, consumption and transport constitute key source of emissions. Oil exploitation is expected to impact on the emission growth in future.

CO2 and CH4 are the major important GHG gases.

Evidence of climate change is abound in Ghana. Temperature has increased by between 0.6OC and 0.8OC since 1960. Projected to increased more between 1.1OC and 1.7OC between 2020 and 2080.

Sector by sector Source: Ghana’s NC2 to UNFCCC, 2011

Climate-related information (2 of 1)

Across the country, rainfall levels are generally projected to decrease with the same time horizons (2020 to 2080).

Manifestations of extreme weather events (drought, flooding etc) and sea level rise impacts are evident in Ghana.

Impacts of climate change has been identified as additional threat to the economy of Ghana. Sectors are climate sensitive (particularly, agriculture, water, infrastructure etc).

Vulnerability spread defined by: poverty, geographical spread, livelihoods sources, infrastructural resilience, access to risk information, gender etc.

ICT Sector in Ghana (3 of 1)

Widespread availability of efficient and reliable telecommunication services in Ghana.

Growing and highly competitive market. 6 international market players (as service providers) with independent government regulation. Potential to grow????

Aggregated energy or GHG intensity is high. Could potentially increase with large footprints (large due to expansion of coverage).

High climate risk to, and impacts on telecommunication infrastructure. (In Ghana, they are largely installed as single units preferably on high grounds) – effects on quality of service to customers.

Affordable ICT Options in Ghana

Telecommunication - high penetration (households, urban, sub-urban areas, some transit communities, limited in rural areas), advance technologies for messaging (text and image), internet connection, fiber optic connectivity.

Internet connectivity - wide use (cafes, offices, homes, schools and limited in sub-urban and rural areas). Generally poor speed, application areas may include broadly: business, telecom, social media, emailing, search engines.

Access to computers and application: increasing use and access, for commercial, private and official purposes, special form for application use (weather forecasting, banking, telecommunication, geographical position systems), limited use in rural and sub-urban areas.

Radio and TV – proliferated use. Great deal of access (wide coverage – urban to rural areas). Efficient mode of information dissemination.

Opportunities for ICT in Climate Change in Ghana

Green ICT service delivery - opportunites for low GHG footprint interventions – eg. Solar powered mast units, energy efficiency practices. ( requires government incentive for scale up)

ICT industry offers wide ranging opportunities for developing and deploying climate change early warning services. Cheap, wide coverage, reliable platform of disseminating climate risk information to targeted vulnerable groups. Opportunity exist in Ghana greatly.

There is need to ensure “common platform connectivity” in order to reach the geographically excluded vulnerable groups.

Platform for awareness creation. Cheap and wide coverage.

Corporate Responsibility agenda – could be good avenue to leverage local private sector finance to support national climate change activities.

Strategy and Coordination of Climate Change in Ghana

Climate Change is featured in the Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda.

Ministry of MEST through the National Climate Change Committee is coordinating the development of a National Climate Change Policy Framework.

NCCPF will provide strategic direction and national framework to addressing climate change comprehensively in Ghana.

National Strategies

Targeted at :

Mainstreaming climate change into national development planning. (climate smart economic development - development to build climate resilience with low carbon footprint) – national, sector and district levels

Facilitating implementation of UNFCCC

Coordinating and harmonizing climate change activities

Consultation and awareness

Climate-smart economy

National Development

ICT, energy,

industry, waste,

forestry

Climate

Change

Sustainable consumption

patterns

Cleaner Production

Low footprint

Efficiency

Environmentally Sound

Technologies

Strategicareas

Low Carbon Development

Mainstreaming of CC/DRR

Enhance Capacity for Community Activities

Support core elements of low carbon development

LCD Social Development Adaptation

GSGDA (2010 -2013) – Key Focus Area 9 (Climate Change specific)

Facilitate mainstreaming of CC/DRR national planning

Pilot at the community level - project

National Budget (Budget Guideline on Climate change)

CC/DRR mainstreaming guidebook

District Medium Term Development Plan

Governance & coordination

Capacity building Research & knowledge

management

Finance

International cooperation

communicationMonitoring &

Reporting

Institutional Arrangement for coordinating Climate Change in Ghana

Ghana Environmental Protection Agency

The National Focal Point for Climate Change in Ghana is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA works closely with key frontline sector-institutions on climate change related issues in the country such as the agriculture, forestry, energy, health, communications and finance.

The Agency had worked on and continues to work in a number of climate change programmes and projects.

Lessons from Vodafone-EPA Partnership in Ghana

EPA, Ghana and Vodafone Ghana Limited are partnering to implement the first ICT climate change project in Ghana.

The project was aimed at demonstrating possibilities of developing early warning platform at the local government level. Individual cell phone units are intended as the medium of dissemination of information.

The challenge has been access to “reliable connectivity”

Project also seeks to contribute to setting industry standards as part of regulation.

Awareness creation component

Major challenges

Lack of industry best practices.

Connectivity problems in sub-urban towns and rural areas.

General lack of awareness and capacity in the industry.

Lack of incentive for early action or pioneering and innovation.

Regulation is generally focused on bandwidth allocation and service delivery. Industry standard setting is delimited.

Outlook

6th ITU symposium on ICTs, the environment and climate change

“Accra call for action”

Major outcomes & relevance to COP 17

Mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and the management of e-waste are critical in Africa.

Adaptation to climate change can be effective by making better use of ICT to gather information, process it and disseminate it to those most vulnerable.

By adopting a 'closed-loop' approach to manufacturing and recycling the need to extract and process raw materials, can be much reduced.

6th ITU Symposium in Accra, Ghana, concluded with the adoption of a “Call to Action” to raise awareness and build capacity on using ICTs to tackle climate change.

Major outcomes & relevance to COP 17

The symposium called on the global leaders, environmental experts and representatives from international organizations, NGOs and other sectors that will gather in the COP-17 to :

1. Recognize the phenomenal power of ICTs to assist countries to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

2. Recognize the increasingly widespread use of ICTs in changing many people’s lives and boosting economic growth, and that although ICTs are also a growing contributor to greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, they also provide one of the most significant opportunities to reduce emissions of GHG, through the application of intelligent ICT systems.

Accra, Call for Action

3. Further recognize that ICTs also reduce manufacturing needs by replacing material goods with virtual products, such as online music downloads.

4. Take into account the role that ICT plays as a catalyst to climate change adaptation which will help countries’ preparedness for a more risky future.

5. Enhance the transformational role of ICT for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, will require the use of three technology types: telecommunication systems, observation systems, and information systems.

6. Recognize that there is need to build capacities in developing countries to support ICT as tool for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction

7. Forge partnerships and engage all stakeholders to address climate change, due to its multi-disciplinary nature, is critical. There is the need to work closely with the private sector (especially within the ICT industry) and the youth on this front

8. Emphasize that ICTs play a critical role in providing education and information through broadcasting, Internet and other means of communication and also the role played by ICTs in remote monitoring of the Earth by satellite and by sensors on the ground and in the ocean

9. Note that the use of ICTs in monitoring can provide data and information on deforestation, for instance, or on crop patterns that indicate possible food shortages and that ICTs are vital in disaster alerting which is closely linked to climate change, and that ICT are essential in disaster response by humanitarian organizations and individuals.

9. Recognize that the production and use of ICT equipment is increasing worldwide very fast, leaving rapidly growing amounts of e-waste behind. If not handled in a sound manner, e-waste poses a serious threat to human health, the environment and contributes substantially to GHG emissions.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) - GHANA

CC

IN

TE

RV

EN

TIO

NS

INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS

NATIONALLY APPROPRIATE MITIGATION ACTIONS (NAMAS)

CLIMATE CHANGE &

ICTs

GREEN HOUSE GAS

INVENTORY

PREPARATION OF NATIONAL

COMMUNICATIONS

Thank you