Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has urged Ghana to turn its climate resilience drive into a revenue stream, saying trees and greenery should not only save the planet but also pay for themselves.
Speaking in Accra as Secretary-General of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), Nasheed said urban greening and large-scale reforestation could be backed by carbon credits, providing countries with both environmental protection and financial security.
“A tree is a mitigation outcome because it captures carbon,” Nasheed said. “Now, I am told an average tree sinks 15 kilograms of carbon. It captures 15 kilograms of carbon from the atmosphere. Then someone has to pay for this.”
Carbon credits, known under the Paris Agreement as “internationally traded mitigation outcomes,” allow countries that exceed their emission limits to offset by purchasing reductions elsewhere. Nasheed argued that this mechanism could help climate-vulnerable nations like Ghana conserve their forests while generating much-needed income.
He praised Ghana’s carbon framework, describing it as among the best in Africa, and pointed to its potential in linking projects such as the Ghana Garden and Flower Movement and the Forest Prosperity Plan with international markets. These initiatives aim to plant millions of trees and combine them with ecotourism and agriculture.
Nasheed framed the strategy as part of a broader shift away from austerity. “You cannot become resilient if you are poor. You have to be prosperous,” he said. Instead of cutting back, he urged countries to think of prosperity through greenery: more trees, more revenue, and more resilience.
For Nasheed, unless forests and urban greenery are given value, they risk being lost to short-term needs. “If someone doesn’t pay for these trees, we’re going to cut them down. I mean, you can’t argue with that,” he warned.
