Ghana - Gross emissions from annual cocoa deforestation
Years available: 2014-2021
Data last updated: 28 Jul 2025
GHG emissions from annual deforestation for cocoa (tonnes of CO₂-eq) were calculated within a given year and department by estimating all of the CO₂-eq. potentially emitted due to annual deforestation for cocoa. Here, deforestation was defined as the conversion within one year from undisturbed forest to deforested land as defined by (Vancutsem et al., 2021) and detected as cocoa plantation by (Kalischek et al., 2023) . This metric is calculated by multiplying the deforested area by an estimate of the carbon stock contained in each hectare of deforested land. Carbon stocks represent the total carbon stored in above- and below-ground biomass, but does not include carbon stocks in the soil. We create local estimates of biomass density (carbon stocks per hectare) using data from (Soto-Navarro et al., 2020). Carbon is converted into CO₂-eq emissions by multiplying by a factor of 44/12 ( or 3.67), based on the ratio between the molecular weight of C and CO₂ following (Pachauri et al., 2015).
- (Kalischek et al., 2023; Pachauri et al., 2015; Soto-Navarro et al., 2020; Vancutsem et al., 2021)
- Kalischek, N., Lang, N., Renier, C., Daudt, R. C., Addoah, T., Thompson, W., Blaser-Hart, W. J., Garrett, R., Schindler, K., & Wegner, J. D. (2023). Cocoa plantations are associated with deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Nature Food, 4(5), 384–393. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00751-8
- Pachauri, R. K., Mayer, L., & Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Eds.). (2015). Climate change 2014: Synthesis report. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- Soto-Navarro, C., Ravilious, C., Arnell, A. P., de Lamo, X., Harfoot, M. B. J., Hill, S. L. L., Wearn, O. R., Santoro, M., Bouvet, A., Mermoz, S., Le Toan, T., Xia, J., Liu, S., Yuan, W., Spawn, S. A., Gibbs, H. K., Ferrier, S., Harwood, T., Alkemade, R., … Kapos, V. (2020). Above and below ground biomass carbon [Dataset]. UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). https://doi.org/10.34892/RH7V-HG80
- Vancutsem, C., Achard, F., Pekel, J.-F., Vieilledent, G., Carboni, S., Simonetti, D., Gallego, J., Aragão, L. E. O. C., & Nasi, R. (2021). Long-term (1990–2019) monitoring of forest cover changes in the humid tropics. Science Advances, 7(10), eabe1603. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe1603
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