From Commitment to Compliance: Assessing How Ghana’s Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) Operationalises the Paris Agreement Through Its Climate Change Framework

05 Jun From Commitment to Compliance: Assessing How Ghana’s Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) Operationalises the Paris Agreement Through Its Climate Change Framework

Background

Ghana’s new Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) (“the Act”) was assented to on 6^th January 2025, ushering in a modern and comprehensive framework for environmental protection. The Act repeals the Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1994 (Act 490) and the Hazardous and Electronic Waste Control and Management Act, 2016 (Act 917).

The Act is structured into six parts, with Part V dedicated to addressing and mitigating climate change.  The provisions in Part V provide actionable strategies aimed at strengthening the adaptive capacity of human and ecological systems, and promoting low-emission development strategies. These provisions not only demonstrate Ghana’s commitment to sustainable development but also serve as domestic legal mechanism to implement the country’s international obligations under the Paris Agreement.^[1]

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change adopted on 12^th December 2015. The primary objective of the Agreement is to strengthen the global response to climate change and limit global warming.^[2] Ghana ratified the Paris Agreement in September 2016.^[3]  The passage of the Act gives effect to relevant provisions of the Paris Agreement by incorporating Ghana’s international obligations into domestic law.^[4]

This article provides a detailed analysis of the novel climate change provisions of the Act and their implications for operationalising Ghana’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.

a. Integrated Climate Change Planning and Adaptive Capacity Building  

Article 7 of the Paris Agreement establishes a global goal on adaptation aimed at enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening climate resilience and reducing vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change. This objective is intended to promote sustainable development efforts across all signatory countries of the Paris Agreement. The Act, in line with the Agreement, mandates the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to collaborate with stakeholders to formulate climate change responses that will help insulate the economy, ecology and communities from long term adverse effects of climate change.^[5] This provision also ensures  that climate change becomes a central consideration in all policy and planning processes.^[6]

The Act further mandates the EPA to support the implementation of adaptation efforts by coordinating with ministries, agencies, district assemblies, the private sector, civil society organisations (CSOs), the National Development Planning Commission and academia to establish and operationalise data systems that will aid the adaptation process.

Furthermore, the Act ensures that proactive measures are put in place to prevent or minimise the impact of climate change disasters on the ecosystems by mandating the EPA to integrate climate change disaster risk reductions into strategies for addressing loss and damage caused by climate change.^[7]

By requiring the EPA to collaborate with all levels of governance and society to formulate climate responses and implement adaptation efforts, the Act ensures that adaptation planning and action are woven into every tier of national, sectoral and local planning, thereby ensuring the adaptive capacity of communities are improved.

b. Low-Emission Development Measures

One of the goals of the Paris Agreement is to limit global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.^[8] In order to achieve this, greenhouse gases (GHG) must reach their peak and commence a sustained decline at the earliest possible time.^[9] In a bid to facilitate the reduction in GHG and support the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal, the Act mandates the EPA to collaborate with international, national and local institutions to support low-emission development measures and reduce short-lived climate pollutants in key sectors such as oil and gas, agriculture, and refrigeration.^[10]

c. Implementation of Climate Change Measures

The EPA is required by the Act to do the following for the effective implementation of climate change measures:^[11]

1. Facilitate technical activities of stakeholders involved in climate activities to enhance capacity development through awareness-raising, effective participation and behavioural changes;
2. Foster national climate action dialogues;
3. Identify and promote climate technologies and green practices, and implement capacity building needs in all production and consumption;
4. Collaborate with national and international bodies to develop and transfer technologies in line with national development and climate strategies; and
5. Support the Ministry of Finance to mobilise resources for climate change responses.

These measures advance the objectives of the Paris Agreement by supporting the global response to climate change and contributing to efforts to limit global warming.

d. Climate Change Mechanisms

The Act designates the EPA as the national authority responsible for carbon markets and non-market approaches, voluntary carbon markets, and domestic carbon pricing instruments.^[12]

e. International Climate Change Reporting

In line with the Paris Agreement’s emphasis on transparency, which requires parties to submit periodic reports on their emissions and progress with the nationally determined contributions (NDCs),^[13] the Act tasks the EPA with the responsibility of coordinating the preparation, review, and communication of international climate reports required under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or any subsidiary agreements or accords to the UNFCCC.^[14]

f. Ghana Carbon Registry and Carbon Market Committee

A significant innovation under the Act is the establishment of a digital Ghana Carbon Registry (“the Registry”). The  Registry serves as a national database for carbon market activities both within and outside Ghana.^[15] The Registry:^[16]

1. tracks the transfer and use of Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs);
2. facilitates the listing and registration of mitigation activities and voluntary carbon market projects;
3. hosts and provides public access to all information and activities related to ITMOs; and
4. provides a record of all internationally transferred projects or programmes that are implemented to achieve quantified GHG emission reduction (mitigation outcome activities)^[17] and ITMOs issued.

The Act further establishes the Carbon Market Committee^[18] to approve procedures for the following:^[19]

1. mitigation activities and associated technologies which are eligible under paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement;
2. mitigation projects eligible for the voluntary carbon market;
3. activities that the country intends to host under the mechanism specified under Article 6(4) of the Paris Agreement;
4. the use of an existing approved methodology under an international crediting standard and the national modalities for the approval of new baseline and monitoring methodologies;
5. recognition of recommended independent assessment entity;
6. making recommendations for a mitigation activity developer preparing a mitigation activity which aims to generate ITMOs;
7. making recommendations for the issue of ITMOs to an eligible mitigation activity following a positive examination of the verification report on the mitigation activity;
8. making recommendations on the baseline parameters for nationally determined contributions, which are to be incorporated into the design of a mitigation activity; and
9. making recommendations for the candidacy of individual small-scale mitigation activities for programmatic activity.

By operationalising ITMO tracking, project approval, and transparent governance structures through the Carbon Registry and the Carbon Market Committee, the Act ensures that Ghana implements the detailed rules negotiated under the Paris Agreement^[20] to promote robust and transparent participation in the carbon market.

g. Mitigation Fund

The Act also creates a Mitigation Fund (“the Fund”) and a Mitigation Fund Committee to disburse resources for bilateral cooperative approaches, additional mitigation benefits and scaling up new projects.^[21] The Mitigation Fund Committee is a five-member body responsible for managing and making recommendations for disbursement from the Fund.^[22] The objects of the Fund are to:^[23]

1. provide financial support for the creation of authorised ITMOs through the implementation of a bilateral cooperative approach;
2. provide funds to invest in the generation of additional mitigation benefits in the country to increase the mitigation outcomes of the country;
3. finance the implementation of mitigation activities to raise mitigation ambition in the country;
4. leverage scale-up investments into new and additional mitigation activities that would otherwise not be implemented; and
5. support the operations of the Carbon Market Committee.

The source of money for the Fund is the Corresponding Adjustment Fee payable to the EPA by a mitigation activity developer or an acquiring participating party.^[24] A Corresponding Adjustment Fee means the cost applied to a mitigation activity implemented in Ghana to create ITMOs on the Registry or any other registry under an international crediting standard to compensate for the opportunity and marginal costs associated with transfers and reporting of ITMOs^.[25] An acquiring participating party, on the other hand, refers to a party or country as well as a non-state actor, including a business entity operating within the jurisdiction of the acquiring participating party’s country, that seeks to buy or obtain ITMOs from mitigation activities generated in another country known as the transferring country.^[26]

These provisions institutionalise a financial mechanism directly linked to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and underpins Ghana’s strategy to leverage carbon-market revenues for domestic climate action.

 Conclusion

In conclusion, Part V of the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) translates Ghana’s Paris Agreement commitments into actionable domestic law by embedding climate mainstreaming, adaptation planning, low-emission development and robust transparency into the EPA’s mandate. The creation of a Ghana Carbon Registry, a multi-stakeholder Carbon Market Committee, and a dedicated Mitigation Fund operationalises cooperative approaches under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The novel provisions also serve as avenues for channeling market revenues into domestic climate action. Collectively, these provisions confer the institutional, financial, and legal framework Ghana needs to meet its nationally determined contributions targets and pursue a resilient, low-carbon development pathway.