Ghana is actively seeking to unlock climate financing through carbon markets, but the country’s ability to fully benefit is being held back by weak technical systems and underdeveloped regulatory frameworks, the Minister of State for Climate Change and Sustainability, Baba Seidu Salifu, said Monday.
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series in Accra, Mr. Salifu said the government has identified deepening carbon market participation as a near-term priority alongside scaling renewable energy and building climate-resilient infrastructure. However, he was candid about the obstacles slowing that ambition.
Limited capacity in project development, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems, as well as the absence of clear regulatory structures, remain the most significant constraints on Ghana’s ability to compete for and benefit from global carbon trading.
Ghana has already made early inroads. In 2023, the country signed an Article 6 agreement with Switzerland to supply internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) through clean cooking and waste management projects. The deal was among the first of its kind in Africa under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) framework.
The country has also advanced Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programmes, with results-based payments secured through World Bank-supported arrangements. Though carbon credits linked to forest conservation have begun to flow, volumes remain modest against what Ghana’s forest resources could potentially generate.
The push into carbon markets comes as traditional climate financing tightens. Mr. Salifu noted that donor fatigue and shrinking grant-based support are pressing developing countries to find new instruments. He also flagged the rising weight of loan-based climate finance on Ghana’s fiscal position.
To build momentum, the government has facilitated engagements between local institutions, including the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and international partners to develop a pipeline of bankable climate projects across energy, agriculture and infrastructure.
But analysts and the minister himself acknowledged that converting early-stage frameworks into tradable carbon assets depends heavily on establishing credible MRV systems and regulatory clarity, at a time when competition for carbon finance across Africa is intensifying.
Slow accreditation processes for the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund also continue to delay access to major financing streams.
“Climate action is not charity. It is a strategy,” Mr. Salifu said.
