President Barack Obama announced Friday (July 2oth) that the US was banning the sale of charcoal from Somalia to third countries. The effort is intended to deprive the Somali-based, Al-Quaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab, from important revenue collected from the export of Somali charcoal to countries in the Gulf region.
Energy Poverty
VIDEOS: Can Clean Cookstoves and Energy Poverty go viral
To support this goal, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves came out a few weeks ago with several videos that have been in the making for some time now. (The first four videos on the Alliance’s YouTube channel are the ones in question. And, yes, Julia Roberts does appear in most of them!)
Rio+20: What he said
From an OpEd in The National Review re: Rio+20: “The inability of billions of humans to meet their fundamental needs, including access to clean water and sanitation, nutrition, basic health care, housing, and education, mean an inability to protect the environment. The anticipated Sustainable Development Goals (to replace Millennium Development Goals when they expire in 2015) need to facilitate and not hinder ways in which all people can and should meet these basic needs. Fortunately, this is in line with protecting the environment, too. With those needs met, each person will have the ability and responsibility to engage in environmentally friendly practices. “
Joint UNIDO and Kenya biomass project to begin in June
Kenya and UNIDO launch 5-year biomass project. This is welcome news considering that over 68 percent of the population in Kenya use biomass for cooking, whilst Kenya’s Ministry of Energy estimates that up to 95 percent of the energy consumed in rural areas is in the form of fuel wood, agricultural residue and animal waste.
Tanzania: Championing Energy Solutions for Women
Bagamoyo’s (Tanzania) rapid urbanization and population growth have made it harder for workers like Msilo to keep their businesses afloat and feed their families. Alongside rising electricity costs, the wood most people use for their household and business energy needs is becoming scarcer.
Thirteen women and eight men were instructed on how to produce fuel alternatives to charcoal, using agriculture and crop residues. These residues include rice and cashew husks, wood shavings, coconut husks and shells – all of which can be fashioned into briquettes, whose growing use addresses the shortage of charcoal and other wood-based fuels.