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The 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom, may be entering its last embers of a dying summit but what is chiefly agitating the minds of Ghanaians is not the necessarily WHAT has been said or agreed on by world leaders.

The WHO and HOW many people formed Ghana’s delegation to the confab are the talking points. The number of delegates from Ghana to the conference has generated controversies with critics utterly shocked at the figure.

A full list of government attendees to the COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, indicates that Ghana presented a list of 337 delegates.

The conference commenced from October 31 and is expected to end on November 12, 2021.

Brazil leads the pack with some 479 delegates, followed by Turkey, then the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana in that order. Russia rounds up the top five.

But perhaps what has ignited this discussion is the fact that Africa as a continent contributes just 4 percent carbon emissions to climate change (Ghana's carbon emissions is even less than 1%), thus leading to questions on whether or not the numbers were justified, and concerns over whether government or the private sector funded this trip.

The Vice President of IMANI Ghana, Bright Simmons has registered his displeasure with the move.

He questions the logic in Ghana flying the about 330 government officials to the climate conference.

''Who is paying for the trip and per diems, the tax payer?'', he twitted. 

COP26 Website Figures

Per the provisional list published on the website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, there are over 300 representatives from Office of the President, Parliament, Environmental Protection Agency, various ministries, departments, the media, among others.

Meanwhile, government has sought to shot down the claims saying the number of people whose cost was borne by the state are only 24.

Only 24 From Gov’t, Other Figures ‘Misinformation’

Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Henry Kwabena Kokofu told Asaase Radio in an interview that government only sent 24 out of the 170 delegates to the summit.

“Some of them did not get their Visas, others registered just to participate virtually, others couldn’t make it. By the count of the day we had about 170 people as participants…And these 170 people, most of them are coming from civil society organisations, academia and the private sector. The government delegation per say amounted to 24 in number…So the 337 that is being bandied around is quite misinformation. The number that presented themselves for registration not all of them were able to attend, and I have explained: either constraints, others decided to stay back home and do virtual,” he is reported to have said.


Page 307 to 323 details full list of names of Ghana’s delegates. Check it out below