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"The scientific findings are stronger than ever. This report is likely to confirm that not only are we seeing the impacts of climate change around us already, but worse is yet to come and the world's poorest people are being hardest hit.”
Desertification;
The Environmental Protection Agency whose mission is to co-manage, protect and enhance the country’s environment through its National Action Program to combat Desertification has stated that the estimated percentage of total land area of Ghana prone to desertification is 35% (about 83,489 km2) with the Upper East and eastern part of Northern Region (78,718 km2) or 33% of the total land area of the country) facing the greatest hazard. A recent assessment indicates that the land area prone to desertification has almost doubled in recent times. The percentage total land area in Ghana vulnerable to low, moderate, high and very high desertification was given as 7.47, 48.78, 15.15 and 1.04 respectively. The corresponding land areas in square kilometres are 17,000, 112,000, 34,000 and 2,000, totalling 165,000 km2. These figures are alarming as is highly probable that Ghana will lose more of its forest land in the face of economic development. The future effect will be in the old adage that as soon as the last tree dies the last man dies.
In Ghana, the experience of continuous drought conditions in 1982/83 causing wild bush fires throughout most parts of the country causing extensive damage to farms, forest, flora and fauna and the land has a major factor of desertification.
This issue must be addressed with all seriousness as this phenomenon has an overwhelming impact on our agricultural sector. The sector currently employs about 70% of the rural labour force, contributes 45% of the GDP, accounts for over 55% of the foreign exchange earnings and is responsible for meeting over 90% of the food needs of the country. The sector comprises five sub-sectors, namely: crops other than cocoa (63% of GDP), cocoa (14%), forestry (11%), livestock/poultry (9%) and fisheries (5%).
Deforestation
There is no single day that a Ghanaian wakes up without seeing a truck pulling a log of timber on our roads. One would be living in utopia if he even gets a sentilla impression that these logs are from outside the country
An imperative fuel for most Ghanaians is biomass. It is estimated that around 96 per cent of the population is dependent upon energy derived from plant materials and agricultural waste with 75 per cent of these people burning fuel wood for domestic cooking and water heating. This is by far the most significant type of biomass in use. Currently, it is estimated that each person uses around 1 cubic metre or 640 kg of fuel wood per annum.
Although wood as biomass is often considered as a renewable energy source, this only holds true if trees are replanted. By mass, forest growth in Ghana is less than half of fuel wood demand. By this token, fuel wood becomes an unsustainable energy option despite the carbon neutrality of fuel wood combustion, deforestation in Ghana means the country is a contributor to the Greenhouse Problem.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that traditional cooking stoves are extremely inefficient. It is calculated that traditional Ghanaian stoves are actually less than 10 per cent efficient. In other words, 90 per cent of the wood and its heat is wasted while 90 per cent of the associated carbon dioxide emissions are the result of human activity that benefits no one at all!
Automobile
It has now become the dream of every youth to own a car. Having a car is a sign of wealth and every Ghanaian especially those in the urban areas of Accra and Kumasi seek to attain that. Transportation is the largest source of air pollution in the urban centres. Our plight is even worsened as most of the cars that are imported into the country do not conform to the environmental standard as they have been used for more than ten years before they were into the country. On the streets of Accra today one can see cars that were used during the welcoming of Queen Elizabeth II in1959. The rickety nature of these cars is enough evidence for one to come to a reasonable conclusion that the vehicle has outlived its life span and it’s only living on borrowed time. The level of road construction does not in any way commensurate the number of cars in the urban centres thereby leading to huge motor traffic especially in the major urban areas of Accra and Kumasi. However one should bear in mind that a major significant importance of roads is heat captured and radiated by impervious layers of black asphalt, bricks and stones. These have high capacity to absorb and store heat.
What make the road transport dangerous to the environment are the chemicals it produces which is both dangerous to not only the environment but also the health of individual Ghanaians. Cars are major source of anthropogenic heat.Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the primary gas emission of cars on the globe. This odorless, colorless gas is formed by the combustion of fossil fuels such as gasoline. When inhaled, CO blocks the transport of oxygen to the brain, heart, and other vital organs in the body. Fetuses, newborn children, and people with chronic illnesses are especially susceptible to the effects of CO.
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