Sustainable Ghana 2100

By: Noris, Hanuel, Joel

Ghana 2012

Ghana is a country located in West Africa bordering Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Burkina Faso, and Accra as its capital. Ghana is relatively poor, as 28.5% of their population is under the poverty line. Ghana is approximately 240,000 square kilometers with about 18 million inhabitants. The main Energy sources comes from fossil fuels, and a little amount from hydro power (The Akosombo Dam). The economy is mainly based on agriculture and farming, as well as mining, fishing, logging and light industries.

A few actions which Ghana has taken into account to keep Ghana clean:

1. The air quality in Ghana is excellent, as its CO2 emission is 9801 per capita.
2. The City Plan is acceptable because of lots of green space, and a few bike tracks, etc.
3. Ghana has an innovative government as it made policies and organizations, such as:
• Ghana Green Building Council.
•  Ministry of Environment, Science, and Technology (MEST).

Necessary Improvements in Ghana

1. One of the problems we faced when we researched about Ghana in our 'Smart Cities' assignment, was that the people in Ghana did little to no recycling. Ghana recycles only 2% of the daily 1250 tons of waste produced, and most of the other 98% is dumped into landfills.
2. Another problem which Ghana faces today includes Energy Production and conservation. Ghana's main energy source comes from fossil fuels which is estimated to be 92% of their total energy production. The other 8% comes from hydro power. A step which Ghana must take to keep it more sustainable, is to decrease the fossil fuel consumption to a 10%, and equally increase the hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power to all be the same (22.5%), because Ghana has a vast amount of rivers, as well as lots of sun, also an abundance of wind, and the temperature can also go up to 43.9 C.
3. Accra, Ghana also doesn't have any green buildings to date, although there are organizations planning to include green materials into their building habits. The problem in this situation, is that the main material used for building in Ghana is concrete. Concrete is a strong easy material to maintain, however the process of making concrete releases lots of carbon dioxide, thus affecting the CO2 emissions in the environment. But that isn't a problem because the Co2 levels in Ghana are extremely low, but is in an increasing rate.

Natural Recources Pie Graph