Ghana Policy Journal Special Edition on Climate Change Page | 1 GHANA POLICY JOURNAL
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GHANA G P POLICY J JOURNAL Special Issue CLIMATE CHANGE IN GHANA: IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS VOLUME 5 NOVEMBER 2013 Editorial 4 Articles Ferdinand D. Mawunya and S.G.K Adiku: Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Productivity in Ghana: An Agrometeorological Perspective 7 Dilys S. MacCarthy, S.G.K. Adiku and M. Yangyuoru: Assessing the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Maize Production in Two Farming Zones of Ghana Using the CERES-MaizeModel 27 JørgenEivindOlesen, NgonidzasheChirinda and Samuel G. Adiku: Climate Change Impacts on Crop Productivity and Possible Adaptations in Ghana 40 Samuel G.K. Adiku: Farmer-Oriented Coping Strategies for Minimizing Climate Variability Impact on Agricultural Production in Ghana 58 John Asafu-Adjaye: The Economic Impacts of Agricultural Productivity Losses Due to Climate Change: Estimates for Ghana and the Policy Implications 69 A Publication of The Institute of Economic Affairs, Accra, Ghana IEA Ghana The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Ghana was founded in October 1989 as an independent public policy institute dedicated to the establishment and strengthening of a market economy and a democratic, free and open society. It considers improvements in the legal, social and political institutions as necessary conditions for sustained economic growth and human development. The IEA supports research and promotes and publishes studies on important economic, socio-political and legal issues in order to enhance understanding of public policy. Further information may be obtained from: The Institute of Economic Affairs, P.O. Box OS1936, Osu, Accra, Ghana. Tel: +233-302244716 / 0307010714 Fax: +233-302- 222313 Email: [email protected] Website: www.ieagh.org ISBN: 988-584-16-4 ISSN: 0855-3238 © 2013 Copyright by The Institute of Economic Affairs Printed in Ghana. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be published, used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. Publication of this work signifies that the IEA regards it as a competent treatment worthy of public consideration. The findings, interpretations and conclusions of this paper are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the IEA or any organizations that support it. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Canada, under the Think Tank Initiative. Ghana Policy Journal Special Edition on Climate Change Page | 1 GHANA POLICY JOURNAL An international journal on research dealing with policy-related issues concerning Ghana, and Ghana's links and relationships with the rest of the world. Aim and Scope: The Ghana Policy Journal is a multidisciplinary publication of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Accra, Ghana. The IEA is Ghana's first public policy think tank established in 1989. The Ghana Policy Journal is intended to be a forum for the presentation and discussion of views from a wide range of scholars dealing with policy- related issues concerning Ghana and Ghana's links and relationship with the rest of the world. The Ghana Policy Journal is sponsored by the International Development Research Centre's Think Tank Initiative. EDITOR: Prof. John Asafu-Adjaye, Institute of Economic Affairs, Accra, Ghana. International Editorial Board Dr. Eugenia Amporfu, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana. Dr. J. Atsu Amegashie, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Rukmani Gounder, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Prof. Yaw Debrah, University of Wales, Swansea, United Kingdom. Dr. Nahomi Ichino, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States. Dr. James Obben, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Prof. Daniel Sarpong, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana. The Ghana Policy Journal (ISSN 0855-3238) is a peer-reviewed journal published once a year by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Accra, Ghana. The Journal was launched in Accra, Ghana on the 25th of July 2007 by Dr. (Mrs) Mary Chinery-Hesse, then Chief Advisor to the President of the Republic of Ghana, as part of the commemoration of Ghana's 50th Independence Anniversary. Articles published in this Journal are indexed or abstracted in the electronic media of the American Economic Association such as EconLit, e-JEL, JEL on CD. The views expressed in the papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. Page | 2 Ghana Policy Journal Special Edition on Climate Change EDITORIAL Special Issue of the Ghana Policy Journal CLIMATE CHANGE IN GHANA: IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS According to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change will lead to increases in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and hurricanes; rising sea levels and the contamination/salinization of water supplies and agricultural lands; changes in rainfall patterns with an expected reduction in agricultural productivity in already fragile areas, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and declining water quality and availability in arid and semi-arid regions. Climate change is also expected to affect food security in the sense that the reliance on rain-fed and low-input agriculture will mean that output will decline, resulting in lower incomes for farmers. This will in turn increase poverty levels and heighten the risk of malnutrition. The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), released in 2007, predicts that by 2050, yields from rain-fed agriculture in some SSA countries could be reduced by up to 50%. In September 2013, the IPCC's Working Group I released its contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The report considers new evidence of climate change using improved climate models. The models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century. The report finds that each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850. Greenhouse gases emitted from human activities contributed a global mean surface warming in the range of 0.5°C to 1.3°C over the period 1951-2010. It concludes that continued emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system and that limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. It is now widely accepted amongst scientists that Africa is amongst the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change. This can be attributed to a number of factors. Africa is already amongst the hottest places on the Earth and therefore any further warming is bound to be catastrophic. Africa's vulnerability is heightened by the fact that most of the economies in this region rely mainly on natural resources and rain-fed agriculture, which are very sensitive to climate change and variability. For example, biomass provides about 80% of the primary domestic energy supply in Africa, while rain-fed agriculture contributes some 30% of GDP and employs about 70% of the population, and is the main safety net of the rural poor. Another reason is that many African countries are already under various forms of climate related stress (e.g., drought, floods, rainfall variability, HIV/AIDS), which, coupled with low adaptive capacity, make them highly vulnerable to climate change. In addition to climate change, other factors such as population growth will continue to put pressure on Africa's natural resources in the next 50 years. Expansion in both subsistence and small-scale commercial farming, as well as livestock grazing, will continue to put pressure on Africa's forest resources. For example, conversion to small- Ghana Policy Journal Special Edition on Climate Change Page | 3 scale agriculture accounted for about 59% of forestland lost to farming within the period 1990 to 2000. Other contributors to deforestation include unsustainable wood harvesting practices and illegal logging. In view of these dire predictions about climate change, the goal of this special edition of the Ghana Policy Journal is to provide a synopsis of the potential impacts of climate change on Ghana's agriculture and to draw out the implications for policy. The intention is to assist policy-makers and the general public in understanding the latest research on climate change conducted in Ghana that could inform the design of appropriate medium to long- term policy responses to the problem. Previous impact assessments from the IPCC and other research groups have been conducted using aggregate models. Although such models yield useful information on climate change, they tend to mask specific impacts for individual regions or countries. Thus, there is the need for country-specific assessments to inform policy. The five papers in this volume represent a selection of ongoing research on climate change in Ghana. They focus exclusively on agriculture given its significance in Ghana's economy. The lead off paper is by Ferdinand Mawunya and Samuel Adiku and is entitled, 'Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Productivity in Ghana: An Agrometeorological Perspective'. This paper sets the stage for the remaining papers by explaining the process of climate change for the benefit of non-technical readers. It begins with a definition of climate and climate change and proceeds to discuss the causes of climate change. This is followed by a discussion of the nature of climate change and the processes involved. The third section focuses on the links between climate and agricultural productivity. The penultimate section discusses actions that need to be taken in the face of climate change, while the final section concludes with a summary of the key highlights. What will be the possible impacts of climate change on specific crops grown in Ghana? The second paper by MacCarthy, Adiku and Yangyuoru attempts to answer this question for maize production in the country.