Today, three billion people—nearly half the world’s population—burn coal, wood, dung, or compost to heat their homes and cook their food. In addition to the deforestation associated with open fire cooking, especially in regions of conflict, the need for fuel often leaves searchers vulnerable, exposing them to risk of attack.
News
REPORT: Indoor air kills 2.2 million young Chinese
BEIJING (AFP) More than two million Chinese youths die each year from health problems related to indoor air pollution, with nearly half of them under five years of age, state media cited a government study as saying.
The study released by the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said indoor pollution levels can often be 5-10 times higher than those measured in the nation’s notoriously bad outdoor air, the China News Service said.
Tanzania to loose forest cover by the end of century
The Citizen Daily Tanzania’s entire forest cover will disappear in about 10 to 16 decades if the current high level of deforestation is not checked, a new survey warns. While the survey by Conservation International, a non-profit organisation with its headquarters in Washington, DC, United States, has revealed that 2,300 square kilometres of forests is being destroyed yearly, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has put the annual deforestation rate at whopping 4,200 square kilometres. (Read more.) Continue reading
NYT: United Nations: $35 to $40 billion global plan to expand energy use and reduce carbon
UNITED NATIONs – At least $35 billion to $40 billion of annual investments will be required to link all people in the world with modern forms of energy by 2030, a goal that must be reached while reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, a U.N. advisory group recommended yesterday.
MDB: Civil Society Calls on World Bank to Reform its Energy Lending
By Matthew Berger / WASHINGTON, Apr 26, 2010 (IPS). Against the backdrop of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings this weekend, numerous groups have chimed in on the need for and direction of a new World Bank energy strategy. (…) The new energy strategy will try to bridge the dangerous gap between increasing energy access and not exacerbating the effects of climate change. As such, energy likely represents one of the most contentious areas of the bank’s lending policy.