What’s most glaring about this cool infographic on global investment in clean energy is not how much is invested around the world, but how little is invested in Africa, where over 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa depends on wood, charcoal, and animal dung for cooking and heating. This graphic also raises a larger question: what constitutes “clean energy?” When close to 2 million people die each day (mostly women and children) for lack of energy efficient cookstoves or lack of access to alternative, sustainable biofuels, then it’s a clean energy issue, too, no? What’s more “Clean Energy” has been defined Continue reading
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ETHIOPIA: Land grab fears for rural communities
BBC | 15 December 2010 By Ed Butler (Reporter, Business Daily, BBC World Service, Ethiopia) A controversial new farms policy has led to a political clampdown in a remote lowland region of Ethiopia, the BBC has been told. Opposition activists claim that a number of arrests and the killings of 10 local farmers are as a direct result of the new policy. “You cannot speak freely about the land issue now,” one local man told me on condition of anonymity. “You can be arrested or even killed for this. “This is a dark period for all indigenous people living in Continue reading
VIETNAM: Officials stand by as forest burned to charcoal
Planted forests in the south central province of Phu Yen are being ravaged by charcoal and timber sellers. Due to a grave deriliction of duty on the part of the proper authorities, the trees’ planters say they have resorted to begging the wood prospectors to stop. On Wednesday, Thanh Nien witnessed charcoal makers proudly carrying their products from Deo Ca forest as the people who planted the forest stood by aghast. Felled trees lay strewn about on the ground –the victims of loggers who cut down more than they could carry. Read more Continue reading
Cancun: What they’re saying
News roundup on Cancun
The piece that really caught our eye was an editorial by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday which all but sealed the coffin on multi-lateralism and a UN-brokered solution to Climate Change in Cancun.
The reason we’ve chosen to share the nay-sayer’s perspective is because that US remains a major emitter of greenhouse gases and there exists a powerful lobby of Climate Change-deniers that have grown increasingly confident since the sweep by Republicans in the recent November mid-term elections.
Cancun: A flat-line or heartbeat for energy poverty alleviation?
OPINION
When it comes to deploying energy efficient technologies — like clean cookstoves, improved charcoal-making kilns, and sustainable alternatives to wood, charcoal, and animal dung fuels for the world’s three billion energy poor — the ratio of words to action and funding has, until recently, been woefully lopsided.