taken from Green, a NYT blog about energy and the environment By Elisabeth Rosenthal New York – Oct. 4th, 2010 — The United Nations Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000 as a commitment to improve health and education as well as end poverty in less fortunate parts of the globe. The eight goals include targets like universal childhood education, reducing infant mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability. This year there has been a growing movement to add a ninth goal: ending energy poverty. Some 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity. Energy experts like Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the Continue reading
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To meet MDGs, fight energy poverty, report says
The chief economist for the International Energy Agency says the international community must mobilize to target the 1.4 billion people worldwide without electricity, and to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Clean-Burning Cookstoves for Developing Countries
Source: The New York Times, published Sept 28, 2010 To the Editor: Re “Developing Nations to Get Clean-Burning Cookstoves” (news article, Sept. 21): It is great news that the United States will provide $50 million to help provide clean-burning cookstoves for villages in Asia, Africa and South America. In addition to the appalling health risks (1.9 million deaths a year due to inhaling smoke from open fires) and the environmental devastation caused by cutting down trees for fuel, women and girls risk rape and sexual violence when they gather wood to cook or sell. This is particularly true in refugee camps Continue reading
Haiti’s fragile ecosystems facing disaster
(CNN) — While the eyes of the world have followed the effect of Haiti’s devastating earthquake on Port-au-Prince, an ecological disaster has been quietly unfolding elsewhere in the country. The mountainous forests of Haiti’s Massif de la Hotte region have more critically endangered species than anywhere else on earth, according to Alliance for Zero Extinction, a global initiative of 52 conservation organizations. The area has 42 mammals, birds, reptiles, plants and amphibians on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Globally Threatened Species. More importantly, 13 species of frog on the verge of extinction live Continue reading
World Bank appoints clean energy “czar”
09 Sep 2010 17:02:03 GMT Source: Reuters * Second big World Bank hire in sector in recent months * Bank has been criticized for recent coal plant loan WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) – The World Bank on Thursday said it has appointed a California professor to lead its efforts to foster growth of alternative energy programs in developing countries. Daniel Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, will be chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency, the bank said. The position was created amid unprecedented demand from developing countries for support to address development and Continue reading