MONROVIA – The Ministry of Mines and Energy, is calling for accelerated global collaboration in combating climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emission (GHG) below two percent Celsius.
A release from the Mines and Energy Ministry quotes Assistant Minister for Energy, William Thompson as saying, Liberia has made some level of progress towards implementing the transparency elements of the Paris Climate agreement through the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) project which started in 2019, approved by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) in 2018.
According to Assistant Minister Thompson, experts on climate change face an even more daunting challenge to make impact towards changing perception, myth, inherent socialization, culture, behaviors, and way of life. He said, to achieve the advocacy and awareness on climate change, efforts that would support policies and actions for the reduction in greenhouse gas emission must be through enhanced knowledge, coordination, dialogue, and information sharing.
The Assistant Minister for Energy lauded efforts by Conservation International (CI) and the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) for establishing a Project Steering Committee (PSC) comprising representation from the energy, waste, forestry and transportation sectors.
Assistant Minister Thompson was speaking upon his return from Kampala, Uganda, where he represented Liberia, along with the technical team of the CBIT project. The Assistant Minster and technical team had gone for a learning experience visit with their Ugandan counterparts.
The Assistant Energy Minister expressed government’s appreciation to the Uganda CBIT program for what he calls high level of successes they have made in key deliverables of the project, and assured them that the Liberian project technical team will build on the experiences garnered during the learning exchange visit.
“The success story of Uganda CBIT handling and managing the MRV system is worth tapping into as we as a country have jumpstarted this initiative under our own CBIT.” Assistant Minister Thompson asserted.
Liberia’s Capacity Building for Transparency Initiative (CBIT) project is geared towards concerted efforts in building and strengthening Liberia’s national capacity to implement the transparency elements of the Paris Climate Agreement. The project is keen on tracking and reporting the successes of the implementation of its National Disclosed Contributions (NDC).
Mr. Thompson concluded by divulging to the audience in Uganda that in order to track Liberia’s NDC system, Conservation International, in collaboration with the Government of Liberia, has developed a stand-alone Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) framework that will serve as a dashboard in hosting Liberia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) data.