Will 3 billion people ever see this?
…on this?… 
… or this? 
This week 150 heads of state and a Who’s Who of global celebrities will gather in New York to make a last push for the Millenium Development Goals (MDG), the UN’s flagship antipoverty campaign which aims to improve conditions by 2015 for more than half of the planet’s citizens mired in poverty, disease, and environmental degradation.
Noticeably absent from the meeting will be the One Tool that can measurably and directly deliver results across all eight MDGs: better energy efficiency for the almost 3 billion people on Earth who depend on wood, charcoal, and animal dung (biomass) as their primary fuel.
The problem with biomass today
While biomass can be a clean, cheap energy solution, the problem arises when it is burnt inefficiently and in poorly ventilated conditions (think three-rocks-and-a-pot in a one- or two-room hut). As a result, some 2 million people – mostly women and children – needlessly die each year from the consequences of indoor air pollution.
Energy poverty is more than just a public health issue. For the energy poor, the day ends much earlier than in richer countries for lack of proper lighting. They struggle to read by candlelight or kerosene lamps. They lack refrigeration to keep food and medicines fresh. And the few appliances they own are battery battered, a huge expense when you earn only one or two dollars a day.
All energy poverty is not local
More than 90 percent of African families in the sub-Sahara depend on biomass as their primary fuel, but if you thought the impact of energy poverty is limited to poor countries in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, think again.
That’s because the dark particulate matter – sometimes called black carbon – that wafts into the air from the inefficient combustion accounts for about 20% of global warming. This means that the global warming impact of black carbon is roughly equivalent to that of deforestation or all modes of transport.
Luckily, the lifespan of black carbon can be counted in weeks. This means that deploying energy efficient combustion solutions could immediately, permanently, and significantly reduce the part of global warming caused by black carbon emissions.
Demand for woodfuel and charcoal in the tropical belt of Africa outstrips the forest’s natural regeneration capacity. The voracious demand for biomass means ecosystem services and biodiversity are under extreme threat in some of the world’s most diverse habitats. In fact, illegal charcoal production is a multi-million dollar business that threatens the world’s last remaining viable group of Mountain Gorillas living along the border of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The pricetag? Much less than you think.
Energy efficient solutions and the advantages they convey do not require billions in giveaways from Big Pharma, or billions in additional development aid, or a race to deliver a laptop to every child in every village, or even a tax hike for consumers in developed countries.
The technologies we’re talking about — energy efficient cookstoves and improved charcoal-making kilns, better fuels, and other very simple, inexpensive energy solutions — cost as little as $10, and can save the same number of lives each year as die from malaria or tuberculosis.
A 2006 WHO study calculated that a one-time, $2 billion upfront investment would be sufficient to cut by 50 percent by 2015 the number of households using inefficient cookstoves. What’s more, WHO estimates the investment would immediately generate $34 billion in savings for the energy poor and return $105 billion in economic benefit annually to the people who need it the most.
So, what’s the holdup?
If the fix is cheap, quick, and immediate, why hasn’t it happened yet? Why does the world overlook a cheap strategy for reducing global warming, environmental destruction, child and maternal mortality, and global poverty? It is difficult to understand or explain but the answer probably lies in the approaches of both the climate change and energy access movements.
The climate change movement has overwhelmingly concentrated on reducing carbon dioxide, thus ignoring the part played by black carbon. (The extent of black carbon’s role in climate change was largely unknown when the Kyoto Protocol was approved in 1992.)
Meanwhile, the energy access movement has concentrated on providing the energy poor with electricity and natural gas. These are excellent forms of modern energy but fall outside the practical financial or technological reach of most developing countries. It will take massive financial investment for the world to meet the UN’s call for modern energy for all by 2030.
The accelerated and largescale roll-out of sustainable energy solutions has been a glaring omission in the MDG’s toolbox over the past decade. This is especially troubling considering that sub-Saharan Africa lags far, far behind the rest of the developing world in its quest to fulfill the MDGs.
Luckily, these solutions are a natural fit for hungry and creative social entrepreneurs in developed and developing countries, and they can be rapidly scaled up.
A lot can be accomplished in five years. All that is needed is the right signal now.
—
Lakshman Guruswamy, Ph.D.
Nicholas Doman Professor of Law
Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Security (CEES)
University of Colorado at Boulder
J. Kim Chaix
CEO & Founder
The Charcoal Project
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