Climate change in Ghana

This bar chart is a visual representation of the change in temperature in the past 100+ years. Each stripe represents the temperature averaged over a year. The average temperature from 1971 to 2000 serves as the boundary between blue and red colors. The color scale spans from ±2.6 standard deviations of the annual average temperatures recorded between the years specified in the file name.

Climate change in Ghana is impacting the people in Ghana in several ways as the country sits at the intersection of three hydro-climatic zones.[1] Changes in rainfall, weather conditions and sea-level rise[2] will affect the salinity of coastal waters. This is expected to negatively affect both farming and fisheries.[3] Low precipitation, drought and wild fires are also some major effects associated with climate change in Ghana.[4]

The national economy stands to suffer from the impacts of climate change because of its dependence on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, energy, and forestry. Moreover, access to freshwater is expected to become more challenging while reduced water supply will have a negative impact on hydropower, which provides 54% of the country's electricity capacity.[3] Additionally, Ghana will likely see more cases of malaria and cholera since changes in water conditions impact both. Stagnant water bodies which are formed as a result of some flooding occurrences, may support the breeding of more mosquitoes which will eventually cause the increase in the spread of malaria.[5]

In 2015, the government produced a document titled "Ghana's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution".[6] Following that, Ghana signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. The Intended Nationally Determined Contribution after 2016 became the Nationally Determined Contributions commonly referred to as NDCs, which was reviewed in 2021.[7]

A 2023 report by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service noted that Ghana "is vulnerable to rising sea levels, droughts, increasing temperatures, and unpredictable rainfall which negatively impacts infrastructure, hydropower production, food security, and coastal and agricultural livelihoods".[8]

  1. ^ "Ghana at a glance". climatelinks.org. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  2. ^ "Ghana's coastline, swallowed by the sea". UNESCO. 2021-01-11. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  3. ^ "World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal". climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  4. ^ "Newsroom". www.who.int. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference unfccc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Dave, Radhika; Saint-Laurent, Carole; Murray, Lara; Antunes Daldegan, Gabriel; Brouwer, Rens; de Mattos Scaramuzza, Carlos Alberto; Raes, Leander; Simonit, Silvio; Catapan, Marisete (2019-06-27). Second Bonn Challenge progress report: application of the Barometer in 2018. IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature. doi:10.2305/iucn.ch.2019.06.en. ISBN 978-2-8317-1980-1.
  7. ^ Tuebner, Robert (7 June 2023). "Ghana Climate Change Report" (PDF). USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Retrieved 25 May 2024.