So, you’ve been wondering how decisions get made at The Charcoal Project? Is it just Kim and Nina and the elves?
Not always.
We receive invaluable input from individuals who voluntarily serve on our Advisory Board.
Meet the brave men and women of our Advisory Board! Read More »
While much attention has been paid to the social and economic impact of Indoor Air Pollution (IAP), we feel strongly that compiling more comprehensive data on the environmental costs (including Climate Change, loss of ecosystem services, etc.), and impacts on labor productivity and poverty alleviation would help establish the baseline necessary from which to begin a comprehensive review of current policies and cost-benefit analysis of energy-efficiency promotion on a global scale.
TCP to sponsor cost-benefit review of global biomass dependence Read More »
It seems like (BC) (aka soot or particulate matter), is finally being recognized as one of the top worst greenhouse gas offenders.
Regardless of whether you think it contributes 20 or 50 percent of climate warming “radiative forcing,” Congressional hearings held earlier this week in Washington have ensured that this byproduct of biomass and fossil fuel combustion will forever live in infamy.
This erstwhile symbol of the industrial revolution has been definitely declared gaseosa non-grata.
Black Carbon can refocus attention where it’s most needed
BC’s new-found notoriety, may be one of the best things to happen to the biomass & bioenergy community.
That’s because international public opinion — especially those on the forefront of the fight against climate change — will hopefully now turn their attention on this villain — along with their principal emitters: the energy poor who depend on biomass as their primary source of energy.
It’s official: black carbon declared gaseosa non-grata Read More »
[USAID/IAP Updates] Black carbon soot, produced from incomplete combustion of diesel fuel and biomass, is one of the largest contributors to climate change apart from CO2 and should be a prime target of policymakers according to scientists and experts testifying at a hearing Tuesday of the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
“Black carbon packs a powerful punch when it comes to climate change, absorbing solar radiation while in the atmosphere and also darkening the surfaces of snow and ice, contributing to increased melting in vulnerable regions such as the Arctic and Himalayas,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). “The good news is that it only stays in the atmosphere for up to a few weeks, making it an ideal target for achieving fast cooling through aggressive mitigation measures.”
Time for action on black carbon, US Congress warned Read More »
OPINION
How much does energy poverty cost?
How much is lost in productivity by societies dependent on traditional biomass fuel?
What is the monetary value of global deforestation for biomass fuel use?
What is the cost (in CO2-equivalent) of the volumes of black carbon being pumped into the atmosphere?
What percentage of national budgets go to treat illnesses attributable to indoor air pollution from inefficient biomass combustion?
How much potential income is lost from the estimated 1,500,000 people who die annually as a consequence of exposure to indoor air pollution?
World needs a Nick Stern report on energy poverty Read More »
PARIS (AP) – Rich nations must contribute more to a climate change fund and help fight deforestation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a conference Thursday on saving the world’s forests – a key defense against global warming.
Sarkozy: more funds needed to fight deforestation Read More »
CNN’s Anderson Cooper last week reported on a story we published back in January. The short video highlights a stove project run by international relief agency Mercy Corps in one of its refugee camps in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Watch the video
CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports on stove project in Congo Read More »
So you think you can’t reduce energy poverty, cut greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs, and turn a profit at the same time in one of the world’s poorest countries?
Conor Fox thinks otherwise.
Malawi: Improved stove and kilns program cashes in on carbon offsets Read More »
(BBC) More than 300 people are feared dead after heavy rain caused a series of landslides in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda. A trading centre in a village was flattened, leaving shops and houses buried under the mud, officials said. Rescuers are digging in the mud with hand-held tools as mechanical diggers cannot reach the affected villages. President Yoweri Museveni visited the affected area, and criticised residents for settling on a floodplain. The president also said the disaster could be partially blamed on local farmers for stripping the land of thick plant life. Some 86 deaths have been confirmed, with local officials saying at least 250 people remain missing.
UGANDA: Landslide linked to deforestation kills hundreds. Read More »
In October 1998 I walked out of a Costa Rican jungle after narrowly escaping a disastrous film shoot with crocodiles.
The near fiasco had nothing to do with filming the animals up close in their natural habitat. Instead, what almost sunk the project was the relentless pounding of a tropical rain that soaked everything and everyone.
Back in our hotel in San Jose we discovered the cause of the rain was a major hurricane that had slowly swept across the Central American isthmus, causing massive death and destruction in Guatemala, Honduras, and in my home country, Nicaragua. Nearly 11,000 people were killed. The flooding caused extreme damage, estimated at over $5 billion (1998 USD, $6.5 billion 2008 USD).
Nicaragua: Of Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Crocodiles, and Energy Poverty Read More »
A government ban on charcoal in the Chadian capital N’djamena has created what one observer called “explosive” conditions as families desperately seek the means to cook.
“As we speak women and children are on the outskirts of N’djamena scavenging for dead branches, cow dung or the occasional scrap of charcoal,” Merlin Totinon Nguébétan of the UN Human Settlements Programme (HABITAT) in Chad, told IRIN from the capital. “People cannot cook.”
“Women giving birth cannot even find a bit of charcoal to heat water for washing,” Céline Narmadji, with the Association of Women for Development in Chad, told IRIN. (More)
CHAD: Panic, outcry at government charcoal ban Read More »
Nicholas Harrison is the driving force behind one new idea in Tanzania: the East Africa Briquettes Company. Harrison purchased the factory in Tanga in March 2009 where he now produces the “mkaa bora,” a briquette that burns “longer, hotter, and cheaper” than conventional vegetable charcoal.
The country consumes about one million tons of wood charcoal each year, so the market is huge. And with a deforestation-to-replacement rate of 3-to-1, there is little chance Tanzania will be able to keep pace with the country’s demand for charcoal, especially in the growing capital.
The East African Briquettes Company points the way to sustainable biomass alternative Read More »
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