The Government of Liberia (GOL) through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has disclosed a plan to create green corridors in five municipalities: Monrovia, Buchanan, Gbarnga, Ganta, and Paynesville, to enhance its climate-change mitigation drive.
The creation of green corridors in these cities is intended to enhance adaptation, as the impacts and effects of climate change increase and affect multiple sectors and areas in Liberia.
The creation of green corridors is the planting of trees that serve as windbreakers, and provision of shade and beautification.
The EPA and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Tuesday, November 17, 2020 concluded a two-day Green Corridor Technical Meeting in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, to provide technical inputs that would help drive the creation of green corridors in the five cities.
The meeting, which attracted city mayors, development superintendents and representatives of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, Forestry Development Authorities (FDA) and counties engineers, placed focus on the conduct of feasibility analysis of the available quantitative data on the adaptation potential of adding green corridors to these five cities.
The meeting also sought to recommend targets to be added to the 2020 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), facilitated by Ephrat Yovel, an international expert who did presentation on the concept of Urban Green Corridors and overview of urbanization in the five cities.
Liberia submitted its first NDC in 2015. The document outlined the country’s intended action to contribute to the global effort to combat climate change.
It also contained both adaptation and mitigation targets that are contingent on the availability of support, a release from the EPA said.
Liberia NDC presents a platform to integrate its Low Carbon Development Strategy into the country’s long-term sustainable development vision by 2030 (Agenda for Transformation).
According to the release, Liberia mitigation targets include reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) by at least 10% by 2030; improving energy efficiency by at least 20% by 2030; raising share of renewable energy to at least 30% of electricity production and 10% of overall energy consumption by 2030; and replacing cooking stoves with low thermal efficiency (5-10%) with the high efficiency (40%) stoves.
Liberia also planned to implement adaption actions in sectors such as energy, agriculture, forestry, fishery, health, coastal etc.
The country has an opportunity to revise and resubmit its NDC in October 2020, including by raising ambition in mitigation action and improving access to financial support for their implementation, as part of the Paris Agreement, the release concluded.
The meeting was funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and NDC Partnership through Conservation International (CI) and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).