ghana climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment

2. APPROACHThis Climate Change Assessment (hereafter, Assessment) of Ghana was prepared by a team of US ForestService scientists and Ghanaian counterparts, based in part on interviews with government officials, staff ofnon-governmental organizations (NGOs), and representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) over atwo-week period. In addition to interviews, the team collected geospatial data from agencies and electronicpublic sources, as well as an extensive literature review. The Assessment was conducted at two levels, anational overview and a targeted assessment of the Savanna Zone, comprised of the three northernadministrative regions in Ghana (Northern, Upper West, and Upper East).In the Assessment, we first set the context by describing the general climate of Ghana and the projectedchanges to 2080. We discuss vulnerability to climate change at the national level, by ecological zone, andderive key issues affecting vulnerability. Mitigation and adaptation opportunities and challenges are presentedfrom a national perspective. The level of analysis then shifts to an assessment of the savanna zone for whichUSAID-Ghana has targeted the Feed the Future (FtF) program for the next several years (USAID/Ghana,2010), and the Coastal zone where significant new developments in the energy sector are anticipated. Thereport concludes with some options for future USAID/Ghana programming in terms of integration intoexisting programs and new interventions.Our approach to climate change assessment follows a particular conceptual model, and some explanation is inorder of how we use terms such as vulnerability, mitigation, and adaptation. Assessing vulnerability of naturaland human systems has developed from two disciplinary approaches, disaster risk reduction (natural hazards)and climate change adaptation (Renaud and Perez 2010) leading to multiple definitions of terms common toboth approaches. Reviews of these approaches and attempts to reconcile terminology abound (e.g., (Adger1999, Kelly and Adger 2000, Turner, Kasperson et al. 2003, Smit and Wandel 2006, Fussel 2007, Birkmannand von Teichman 2010). The climate change literature that follows the definition of vulnerability given bythe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Carter, Jones et al. 2007; Schneider, Semenov et al.2007) uses a combined vulnerability that is a function of hazard, exposure and sensitivity (Brooks 2003)termed biophysical vulnerability. This approach focuses on human exposure to hazards with littleconsideration of how humans might cope with hazards that occur (Brooks, 2003).Our approach instead views vulnerability as a condition (or state) of a coupled human-environment system.We draw upon the conceptual framework of Sarewitz et al. (2003) who separate the likelihood of an eventoccurring that will affect a system (event risk) from the condition or internal state of the system (vulnerability)that makes it susceptible to harm from an event. The risk of a particular outcome (outcome risk) integrates theprobability of an event with the characteristics of the system that jointly results in an impact. Brooks (2003)explores how this framework can be applied to the different uses of vulnerability in the disaster risk reductionand climate change adaptation literature and O’Brien, Eriksen et al. (2004) examine the conflictinginterpretations of vulnerability in climate change research.Apparent equivalencies and dissimilarities of the two approaches are evident (Figure 2.1). Event risk issynonymous with hazard (as used in the disaster reduction literature) and with climatic event. Similarly, thereis little difference in meaning among outcome risk, disaster, and risk (as used in the natural hazards literature).18 GHANA CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT