The Member of Parliament for Dormaa East, Paul Apraku Twum Barimah has indicated that the passage of the €20 million Euro loan agreement between the government of Ghana and the German Development Bank would help to promote the development of renewable energy and further boost energy transition pace of the country.
Speaking to the Media after the passage of the agreement, Honourable Twum Barimah said this investment into the renewable energy sector will help to increase energy production, especially, clean energy in the country’s quest to be energy efficient and sufficient.
He applauded the Minister of Energy for establishing the Energy Transition Committee and also lauded government for ensuring that Ghana meets the standards to rock shoulders with other countries after the COP 26conference on carbon emissions.
Parliament approved the €20 million loan agreement between the Government of Ghana and the German Development Bank Group, Frankfurt am Main, to finance the Green Credit Line.
The facility, which is under the Reform and Investment Partnership between the Governments of Ghana and Germany, is expected to help cut down carbon emissions. On two occasions last week, the House failed to approve the loan due to the lack of quorum for decision-making, which was raised by the Minority. Green credit lines are a financial intermediation tool with a twofold objective. First, they aim at fostering lending to projects with environmental benefits often referred to as ‘green lending’. Second, they aim at building capacity in LFIs to expand the local green lending market after the credit line is closed. Under a GCL, funds are typically extended by a PFI to participating LFIs that in turn on-lend them to developers of eligible green projects. GCLs may include advantageous financial conditions, such as reduced interest rates, longer tenors, increased grace periods or incentive payments. GCLs may also include technical assistance (TA), which is usually funded by the PFI and aims at building the capacity of local banks to provide loans to green investment projects and/or capacity of end-borrowers to structure investment proposals.
GCLs include targeted policy dialogue with governments in recipient countries aimed at improving the general investment climate for green projects.
“While the effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are irreversible on the timescale of humans alive today, every little bit of avoided future temperature increases results in less warming that would otherwise persist for essentially forever. The benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions occur on the same timescale as the political decisions that lead to those reductions.”
“Without major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by 2.5 °C to 4.5 °C (4.5 °F to 8 °F) by 2100, according to the latest estimates. However, it may not be too late to avoid or limit some of the worst effects of climate change. Responding to climate change will involve a two-tier approach which include Mitigation reducing the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere; Adaptation, learning to live with, and adapt to, the climate change that has already been set in motion.
