Adaptation and Mitigation to climate change

     One interesting example of an effort that Ghana is pursuing is the adaption committee that is being formed with 32 experts on adaption with expertise in vulnerability and adaption. This members will help when new situations arise so a solution can be found efficiently and effectively.

      The second interesting example of an effort that Ghana is pursuing a technology action plan. The plan allows for more technology to be brought into the country, this will allow for the country to better adapt to the ever changing climate changes. Due to the hard financial situation that the country is facing it is not able to purchase new technology right away. It is greatly hoping on the helps for other more well off countries.

       An interesting trend is the diversification of livelihood activities. and moving into a income driven livelihood. This is due to the need to bring more money into the country and with more money and governance the more the country will be able to purchase technology, and be able to provide food and medical attention that the citizens of the country deserve. With this the country will have more help in order to battle shocks that the climate change may serve from time to time.

       Ghana has been ratified in the Kyoto protocol. The country was ratified on February 15,2005. The country is one of the lowest countries in producing carbon dioxide output so this protocol did not require for changes to take place in Ghana. Ghana plays a very small roll in this protocol and is just part of it so that they are more aware of it.

I personally think that the country is not a big player in  the amount of green houses gases that are emitted. So i do not think that it is necessary for the country to mitigate  climate change especially since the country does not have financial and technological ability to mitigate it. Al tho the country does not have a reasonable ability to change the climate, it should prepare and brainstorm ideas as to how to adapt to the future changes that the country will face in the future.The following picture shows the community based adaption the country has faced.

Impacts of Climate Change

1. During this century Africa is more than likely to keep warming. The amount for it to warm up is projected to be more greater than the global average throughout the continent during all of the seasons. It is also projected that the amount of rainfall to decrease throughout the continent. The vegetation along with ocean temperate helps determine what the projected climate will be. The following is the previous and the projected temperatures broken down by region.
                                    
 

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-2-3.html

 2) It is projected that by year 2020 there will be 75 million to 250 million people that are exposed to an increased amount of water stress, which is created by the increase in temperatures and climate changes. Also due to climate changes the amount of food available is going to decrease even more as the hotter it is th tougher it is to grow produce. The newest studies is projected that Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents for climate changes because of multiple factors and the low capability to adapt to the projected changes.

3) The lack of ability for Africa to adapt to changes forces it to be one of the most vulnerable continents to climate changes. The lack of infrastructure and technology and limited access to capital and just development challenges as a whole impact the ability that Africa has o strive to keep up with the climate changes. While farmers have come up with ways to adapt to the current changes in climate it will be very difficult for the country to continue to adapt with the economical system that is currently in place. Due to this the agricultural production and safety of food will be compromised in the future. The health of the people living in this continent is already a concern and that concern will only continue to grow seeing how the living conditions are not projected to get better and instead are being projected to provide for a harder life.
The following graph will show how food and nutrition is impacted and is intertwined with the climate change and food security.


http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch9s9-6.html#9-6-1


4) The threat of rising sea level for Africa is real and will be causing a great big damage if or when it happens. With 1m of rise in sea level it is estimated that this will cause about $250 million in damages and possibly flood all of the current infrastructure that is being produced. the sea level rising is threatening the low barrier breeches and if a rise occurs can create over topping and even destruction to land. The climate changes for this continent are extremely real and need to be addressed quickly and this continent needs help from surrounding countries.
    The risk that this country will not be able to change with the climate change is a very real and scary situation. As the citizens of this country need to survive and the ability to do so is not improving. The amount of diseases is only increasing and with the change in climate there is a risk of new diseases to arouse. If new diseases come about the ability to make a cure is even lower as it is hard enough right now for the country to better it's citizens. With such a weak economic system it is difficult for the country to grow and continue to adapt with the every changing world.

Ghana's contribution to climate change




This is the Keeling curve that shows the Carbon Dioxide Concentration trends through the years for Mauna Loa, HI. This graph was created by using the date from:ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt




This is the total Fossil Fuel Emmision by country the data was pulled from the following: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_usa.html

The CO2 emmision of Ghana is lower compared to other countries emmisions of CO2. With it being lower it does not mean that they do not contribet to the emmisions of CO2. Since the recordings started in 1950 there is a continual growth of CO2 emmisions. The biggest part of this is the emmissions from liquid fluids the other factors have been pretty stable through out the years. The emmision from cement production has been slightly increasing since the 1990 to the present time. The more cement productions can be coming from the country trying to evolve and grow into a more substantal country.

The per capita CO2 emmisions has grown slightly  but through out the years has stayed in the range of .05 to .1. The per capita CO2 emmision in the United states is 4.9. Ghana's per capita CO2 emmisiions i 2% of that of the United States. The US is a more powerful and a more advanced country then Ghana, where Ghana is still starting and attempting to buil a country. The necessaity for the United States to sustain all of the techonological advances and the lifestyle of the country requires more then Ghana does. Ghana ranks 177 out of 215 countries where as the united states ranks as the 12th out of the 215 countries that are ranked. I think that this ranking is great when applying it to the effects of global warming. The per capita CO2 just cant stay this low as the more the country grows but if both growth and low CO2 emmiion were possible that would be the ideal situation.

The total fossil fuel emmision for the country of Ghana are pretty stable through out the years. Compared to the other countries on the graph above Ghana is not even close to other countries like the United States and China. The country closest to Ghana is Kenya. They have continually stayed at the same emmision level while the other countries countinue to grow. Out of the countries depicted on the above graph China had the most fossil fuels emmisions in 2008. While the country of China has emmited more then the United States, the country of China has a population of 1,338,000,000 and the United States has a population of 312,000,000 which is a lot less people. So with this information the United States citizens have more fault for emmiting CO2. The diference between China and the United States is not that big which mean the United States emmits more per capita. The following are cumulative totals of fossil fuel emmision per country so that we can see who has the biggest impact cummulitively; United States - 91,229,888, China - 31,793,558, India - 9,151,461, Ghana - 56,379, Italy - 5,364,817, Kenya - 80,124. So when looking at cumulative totals the loest country emmiting CO2 is still Ghana  while the country with the most CO2 emmisions is the United States eventhou China had more CO2 emmision then the United States in 2008. In total China emmits 34.85% of that of the US and India emmits 10% of the amount the US emmits. These are drastic differences when the the countries are compared to the US. The US emmits more CO2 than any other country compared on the above graph.

Carbon emmisions are different than carbon dioxide concentration. carbond emmisions are the fuels that are burnt and are trpped in the earths atmosphere and the carbon concentraions are absorbed by the plants. The following is the global emmsions of carbon.

 If the same years are compared to the first graph in this post than you can see that the same trend occurs and the more time that passes the amount of carbon increases.