By Arsène Séverin KINKALA, Congo, Jun 22, 2010 (IPS) – The trees are falling in Pool, and there are plenty of people to hear the sound. In a painful irony, the end of armed conflict in 2003, has signaled the wholesale devastation of forests in this southern region of the Republic of Congo. All along the 75 kilometre road between the capital Brazzaville, and Kinkala, the southern region’s principal city, there are bundles of wood and sacks of charcoal stacked ready to be trucked to feed the household energy demands of the capital. Since the end of the civil wars Continue reading
Human development
MADAGASCAR: WWF: with draught & poverty, poor people turn to charcoal-making
14 June, 2010 via WWF website
Toliara – Field staff at WWF Toliara in Southwestern Madagascar have reported a substantial increase of charcoal production in the last couple of months in their zones of operation. Due to the missing rainy season, farmers abandoned their fields by the hundreds and try to make a living producing charcoal. The lack of regulations and control makes the charcoal business an easy one to work in.
OK, UNDP, what’s the REAL plan to alleviate energy poverty?
OPINION We almost choked on our first Red Bull of the day when we opened up our social media apps and stumbled upon this tweet. How could we possibly not be excited by the influential David Roberts (Grist) tweeting about the UNDP’s call for greater attention to alleviating energy poverty as a key strategy to achieve the MDGs? But, like a puzzled puppy who’s favorite chew bone has been taken away for no reason, we were disappointed by what we read when we clicked on the link: it was yet another lofty paragraph written in “development-ese” leading to a bunch Continue reading
Energy Obesity vs Energy Poverty: Will US Corporate CEO’s address them simultaneously?
Bill Gates last week joined the CEOs of GE, Bank of America, Xerox, Lockheed Martin, and others, in calling for the United States to modernize its energy systems with investments in cleaner, more energy efficient technologies.
What seemed especially eerie is how the group’s exhortation could easily have been uttered by the top CEOs of companies based in developing countries.
How BP is going to help alleviate energy poverty
BP, the US Congress, and the White House don’t know this yet, but we think the Macondo gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is going to help put better cookstoves, fuels, and policies in the pots of the world’s 3 billion energy-poor households.