Jean Kim Chaix

“Hundreds of, mainly, men from around the Dzalanyama forest reserve in Malawi have been descending on it, camping deep inside it, felling trees for charcoal burning. Lizinet Josiah, 28, reckons that there are no culprits worse than those from her village.

She also knows that sustaining the forest would bring back the reliable rainfall. But she chooses to stun you, instead.

“As long as the charcoal alleviates our poverty and gives us something with which to buy food, the forest can go,” she says.”

“It’s all because of poverty. We want to have food but we don’t have money to buy the food or fertiliser to boost our food yields. We get something from the charcoal from the forest. We buy food and top up what we get under the farm income subsidy programme. What we get is little and this season was worse.”

We anticipate that this news will have important implications for the clean cookstove and efficient charcoal production industry in the developing world. This item comes to us via EESI. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the formation of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, a coalition of nations to curb

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

As the world’s population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.

A growing desire to explore non-CO2, GHG-emission-busting options opens the door for delivering efficient technologies and renewable fuels to fast growing parts of Africa and the world that are hungry for energy.

This should be sweet music to the ears of The Charcoal Project supporters who believe wood energy can be compatible with environmental conservation, GHG emissions reduction, and a source of renewable energy for low-carbon economic growth.