Julia Roberts To Star In Saving Lives In Rural Kitchens

The Pretty Woman is getting her hands dirty and for a good cause. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has announced that Academy Award winning actor Julia Roberts will serve as Global Ambassador, helping to bring attention to the deadly smoke from unsafe and inefficient cookstoves. 

According to a GACC Press Release, Julia Roberts will help raise awareness about the millions of people who face health effects, accidents or death in developing countries due to the reliance on traditional cookstoves and open fires that use wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for fuel. 

“Nearly 2 million people around the world – mostly women and children – die each year from an activity that many of us take for granted: cooking for our families,” Roberts is quoted as saying.

United Nations Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth.

Cookstove smoke contributes to a range of chronic illnesses and acute health impacts such as early childhood pneumonia, emphysema, lung cancer, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease and low birth weight.  The smoke from inefficient stoves continues to contribute to global climate change by producing harmful greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane, and aerosols such as black carbon.  Reliance on biomass for cooking and heating also increases pressure on local natural resources and forces women and children to spend many hours each week collecting fire wood – an especially dangerous task for women and girls in refugee camps and conflict zones.

Better Energy Makes For Lesser Energy Use

As per a report in National Geographic, in two small villages on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast, a project to improve electricity service had a remarkable side benefit—household energy use actually dropped nearly 30 per cent. When efficient compact-fluorescent (CFL) lightbulbs were added to the mix, energy savings surpassed 40 percent.

“It shows that you can meet development objectives for the poor and climate objectives for all of us at the same time,” said Daniel Kammen, chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the World Bank, and co-author of an analysis published in the weekly journal Science,The Energy-Poverty-Climate Nexus.

As per National Geographic.com, the study set out to demonstrate a method for measuring both the climate and financial benefits of making investments that improve delivery of reliable, affordable energy for poor communities. Mobilizing such investment is crucial, with 1.5 billion people around the world living without electricity. Another 1 billion people have unreliable electricity, and nearly half the global population relies on unhealthy and polluting wood, charcoal, and dung stoves for cooking.

The United Nations said in a report co-written with the International Energy Agency that its goals for fighting extreme poverty will fall short unless nations also work to bring electricity and modern, safe cooking technology to the “energy-poor” people around the world.

The analytical method outlined in the paper is “very helpful for certain contexts, particularly for looking at how increasing energy efficiency can help support energy access," says Richenda Van Leeuwen, senior director on energy and climate for the the United Nations Foundation, a non-profit that supports the work of the UN. She said she especially sees potential for the approach to be adapted for addressing the global problem of primitive cookstoves. Inefficient wood and waste stoves, used by 3 billion people around the world, create black carbon particulate emissions, a large contributor to climate change, and have a devastating impact on health—especially for women and children.

“There is really room for more research in this area for both traditional cooking and kerosene-based lighting, which both emit smoke,” Van Leeuwen said. “You could begin to monetize the savings of fewer trips to clinics, and fewer treatments for acute pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses that are common among people breathing in cookstove smoke day in and day out.”

Van Leeuwen said the approach is among those being weighed by the new public-private partnership, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the United Nations; global energy company Shell and its Shell Foundation; investment bank Morgan Stanley; and the nonprofit SNV-Netherlands Development Organization.

Kammen’s new study underscores the importance of doing a similar analysis for the world’s poor, who can spend more than 30 percent of their income on energy services. In wealthy countries, only 2 to 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product is spent on energy. “Because energy services are often expensive,” said Kammen, “finding ways to provide them more efficiently benefits the poor more than the rich.”

Representative photograph: 2009 UNEP Sasakawa Prize Co-Laureates
Read the full story on: Fighting Poverty Can Save Energy, Nicaragua Project Shows

Grant For PHI For Clean Cookstove Technology

The Public Health Institute (PHI) has been awarded a major grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) focused on implementing clean cookstove technology, according to a PHI Press Release.

The $980,000 award will support planning and field work for the next year on cookstoves in Kenya, Guatemala and India, as well as joining the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the National Institutes of Health and CDC in planning a global clean cookstoves workshop.

This grant is one of the first provided by a U.S. Government agency under a new initiative for clean cookstoves announced at the Clinton Global Initiative on September 21 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Secretary Clinton said that the U.S. government would provide at least $50 million over the next five years toward a global goal to put 100 million fuel-efficient stoves into use worldwide by 2020.

The Public Health Institute, a California-based nonprofit, has been generating and promoting research, leadership and partnerships to build capacity for strong public health policy, programs, systems and practices for 40 years.

“We are delighted to implement one of the U.S. government’s first large-scale efforts on clean cookstoves,” said PHI President and CEO Mary Pittman. “This project will allow PHI to help advance public health knowledge and practices around the use of cleaner cookstove technologies around the world and their impact on air quality.”

“There is no silver bullet when it comes to clean cookstove technology,” said Pittman. “We understand that there remain significant challenges in the design, manufacture, distribution, and measurement of clean burning stoves. But putting fuel efficiency and safe technology in the hands of millions of people is an attainable goal, and PHI is the right organization to work with CDC and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves on this critical initiative.”

Read Press Release Public Health Institute Award to Advance Clean Cookstove Technology
Photo Courtesy: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

UN-Led Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Launched to Combat Indoor Air Pollution

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves led by the United Nations Foundation, will bring together leading foundations, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, corporate leaders, governments and UN agencies to help overcome current barriers and stimulate a thriving global market for clean cookstoves, says a Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Press Release.

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a $60 million dollar public-private partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. Exposure to smoke from traditional stoves and open fires – the primary means of cooking and heating for 3 billion people in developing countries – causes almost 2 million deaths annually, with women and young children affected most. That is a life lost every 16 seconds.

The Alliance’s goal is for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.

This was announced by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today during the Secretary’s remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative forum.

"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 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham 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."

Cookstove smoke contributes to a range of chronic illnesses and acute health impacts such as early childhood
pneumonia, emphysema, lung cancer, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease and low birth weight. The smoke from inefficient stoves continues to contribute to global climate change by producing harmful greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane, and aero­sols such as black carbon. Reliance on biomass for

cooking and heating also increases pressure on local natural resources and forces women and children to spend many hours each week collecting firewood – an especially dangerous task for women and girls in refugee camps and conflict zones.

The use of efficient cookstoves can dramatically reduce fuel consumption and exposure to harmful smoke. Recent scientific evidence confirms that the greater the emissions reductions, the greater the health benefits. More efficient stoves also reduce the time people (usually women and girls) have to spend collecting fuel, and since stoves last for several years, the accumulated savings in time and cost can be invested back into families, communities and economies.

The reductions in emissions achieved by clean cookstoves have the potential to create revenues from carbon credits. Stove companies can use this revenue to reduce stove prices or expand into new markets. More broadly, the entire clean cookstove supply-chain should be a source of economic opportunity and job creation at the local level.

To achieve its ‘100 by 20’ goal, the Alliance will establish industry standards; spur innovative financing mechanisms; champion the cause across the donor and development communities; develop indoor air quality guidelines; address global tax and tariff barriers; field test clean stoves and fuels; and develop research roadmaps across key sectors such as health, climate, technology and fuels.

A thriving global industry for clean cooking solutions will provide a range of long-term benefits for the entire world –from improving global health to combating climate change.

Alliance Founding Partners

United Nations Foundation, Shell Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of State, World Health Organization (WHO), German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Morgan Stanley, UN-
Energy, World Food Programme, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Industrial Development Organization, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention), UN High Commissioner for Refugees, SNV: Netherlands Development Organisation, Shell, Government of Peru, Government of Norway.

Photo Courtesy: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves