Go for the quick energy-efficient fixes

Published: November 20 2009 02:00 | Last updated: November 20 2009 02:00

From Mr Jean Kim Chaix.

Sir, The suggestion that climate change negotiators shift their focus from emissions reduction to enhancing global access to energy-related services for the world’s poor is well-intentioned but misguided.

Whereas the proposed deployment of energy-efficient technologies to the neediest would take decades to fulfil, mandatory caps on emissions would immediately result in accelerated technological transfers and direct payments to developing countries for forest protection and other offsets.

A faster, cheaper and more effective proposition would be a crash programme to convert the world’s 3bn energy-poor – almost all of whom depend on wood fuel for heating and cooking – to locally produced energy-efficient stoves and alternative biomass fuels, like briquettes made of discarded vegetable matter.

Such a programme would immediately and simultaneously address urgent public health, poverty and environmental degradation issues at a fraction of what it would cost to provide hybrid vehicles and electrify every rural corner of the globe.

Jean Kim Chaix,
Director,
The Charcoal Project,
Brooklyn, NY, US