Today’s announcement by Sec. Hilary Clinton and the ensuing coverage is undoubtedly a landmark for the improved cookstove community and all those who have sought to address the risks posed by indoor air pollution around the world.
For the people who have toiled in obscurity for decades trying to improve the stoves, for those who have lobbied to draw attention and financial support to the issue, and for those who are hard at work around the world today implementing cook stove programs, today is a very special day, and hopefully the beginning of larger sustained global effort. So, congratulations to all of you!
The Charcoal Project will continue to share developments around this momentous occasion throughout the week.
In the meantime, we leave you with some of the highlights of today’s coverage.
— The Editors
NPR – In the developing world, the smoke emitted while cooking leads to the death of one person every 20 seconds. Secretary of State Clinton is to announce a new initiative to renew the global commitment to safer cookstoves. An India company already is selling cookstoves in villages and showing the potential for changing traditional cooking techniques.
BBC – The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced a global partnership to tackle the scourge of toxic smoke from indoor cooking fires. Cooking smoke is estimated to shorten the lives of 1.9 million people a year; it also contributes to climate change. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a partnership between the US government and other nations along with charitable foundations. It is believed to be the first major attempt to tackle the issue worldwide. The project will attempt to build on national programmes already underway in India, Mexico and Peru.
The New York Times – On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce a significant commitment to a group working to address the problem, with a goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020. The United States is providing about $50 million in seed money over five years for the project, known as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. More than a dozen other partners, including governments, multilateral organizations and corporate sponsors, are to contribute an additional $10 million or more.
from the US Dept. of Energy: Today Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton formally announced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a new public-private initiative to create a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions that will save lives, improve livelihoods and combat climate change. Secretary Clinton outlined partnership and financial commitments of the Alliance as part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting.
Secretary Chu praised the agreement, saying that “as part of the cookstoves alliance, the Department of Energy is lending our scientific and technical resources to develop practical solutions that are clean, safe and affordable. Pursuing concrete steps towards more efficient stoves makes good financial sense, good public health sense and good environmental sense.”
The Department of Energy will contribute $10 million over the next five years and conduct research aimed at addressing technical barriers to the development of low emission, high efficiency cookstoves through activities in areas such as combustion, heat transfer, and materials development. The Department will also work to raise additional funding support for the Alliance through engagement with countries participating in the second Clean Energy Ministerial meeting scheduled for April 2011.
You can get more details on this alliance in the fact sheets below: Overview (.pdf) By the Numbers (.pdf)
Environment News Services – “People have cooked over open fires and dirty stoves for all of human history, but the simple fact is they are slowly killing millions of people and polluting the environment,” Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said today, as she announced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a new public-private partnership led by the United Nations Foundation.
Speaking at the annual Clinton Global Initiative at the Sheraton Towers in New York, Secretary Clinton said the new alliance is “a perfect CGI model of a public-private partnership that already includes governments such as the United States, Germany, Norway, and Peru, international development organizations and local NGOs, as well as foundations and private companies such as Morgan Stanley and Shell.”
“Today we can finally envision a future in which open fires and dirty stoves are replaced by clean, efficient and affordable stoves and fuels all over the world – stoves that still cost as little as $25,” said Clinton. “By upgrading these dirty stoves, millions of lives could be saved and improved. Clean stoves could be as transformative as bed nets or vaccines.”
National Geographic News (This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.)
The United Nations’ goals for fighting extreme poverty—an effort being assessed at a summit this week in New York—will fall short unless nations also work to bring electricity and modern, safe cooking technology to the billions of “energy-poor” people around the globe, a new report says.
The worsening problem of energy poverty, however, can be solved without breaking the banks of nations—and without a significant worsening of the climate change problem, said the study released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and two UN bodies, the Development Programme (UNDP) and the Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Providing modern energy to the very poor—the population that the United Nations seeks to reach in its Millennium Development Goals program—would require an annual investment of about $41 billion per year over the next five years, or just 0.06 percent of global GDP, said the report.
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