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.
The Guardian, London, UK — 10 December, 2010 As ministers discuss the technicalities of carbon emissions at the Cancún climate change conference, 1.5 billion people in poorer countries still have no access to electricity. We need to address this injustice While the discussions on strategies to reduce global emissions rage on in Cancún, too many of the world’s poorest people continue to live without adequate access to energy. It’s clear that for people living in poverty, energy access is absolutely essential for a better life. The services provided by energy are needed in so many ways: cooking meals, lighting, refrigeration Continue reading
Most people in the United States, Europe, or Brazil think of ethanol as a heavily subsidized corn- or sugar-based liquid biofuel that is often mixed with gasoline to power so-called “flex-fuel” vehicles.
But for the 3 billion people who depend on wood, charcoal, or animal dung for their household cooking or heating, ethanol means … … Well, ummm, actually, the word “ethanol” probably doesn’t mean all that much.
One plucky non-profit is hoping to change this by making locally and sustainably produced ethanol an attractive homefuel alternative to solid biomass fuels for the world’s 3 billion energy poor
Concern about a land grab in Africa for the production of industrial-scale, ethanol-producing crops may well be justified, which is why bird-dogging the “African agricultural green-rush” is everyone’s responsibility.
The pain of knowing that each year 2 million people — mostly women and children — die as a consequence of the inefficient combustion of household cooking and heating fuels, like wood and animal dung, is with good reason, the engine behind the launch of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves this past September. But if the public health impact of indoor air pollution is not enough to convince people of the magnitude of the problem, then the UN’s most recent Human Development Report makes the clearest argument yet that Climate Change and destruction of the environment are the biggest Continue reading