GERES argues in Cancun for changes in CDM funding to help poorest communities

The French NGO GERES - an Ashden winner in 2006 and in 2009 - has been to Cancun to participate in roundtable discussions about the Clean Development Mechanism.

GERES argues that because communities in the most vulnerable countries of the South have very low levels of CO2 emissions, they cannot take advantage of CDM funding.

If carbon-sparing technological solutions were introduced, these same communities could, however, benefit from better access to energy services, lighting and drinking water, while maintaining a constant emission level.

Swan Fauveaud, manager of the GERES Climate Change Unit, gives this example of the "vicious circle" at work.

In Ladakh, the introduction of passive solar greenhouses and better home insulation can raise the indoor temperature by 15 degrees celsius. According to current CDM accounting standards, this type of activity does not result in any eligible emission reductions because villagers living in poverty cannot afford to heat their homes. That's one of the paradoxes of the CDM!

pic: A woman in Ladakh harvests fresh produce in a solar greenhouse

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Helping to lift people out of poverty also cuts carbon emissions

The Green Futures editor-in-chief, Martin Wright, argues in the Guardian that the idea of having to choose between tackling poverty and tackling climate change is nonsense.

Martin, an Ashden Awards judge, says there's no reason you can't tackle climate change and energy poverty simultaneously.

Indeed, you will struggle to do one without the other. Pretty much every energy technology which helps lift people out of poverty – clean, efficient cookstoves; clear bright solar lights; and, in the developed north, a crash programme of energy efficiency for vulnerable homes – will also cut carbon emissions.

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Sir David picks 12 photographers for sustainability prize

The shortlist for the Third Prix Pictet, the prize for photography and sustainability, was announced today. The theme for this year is 'Growth'. A preview of the shortlisted photographers' works is on show at Galerie Filles du Calvaire, Paris, until 29 November.

The winner will be announced by HE Kofi Annan at the award ceremony in Paris on 17 March 2011. The shortlist was chosen by an independent jury from submissions by over 450 photographers.

The eight-member jury is chaired by Professor Sir David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at Oxford and an Ashden Advocate. Today's statement said the jury looked for photographic series of the highest artistic merit

that also presented a convincing narrative about the critical issues of sustainability and in particular, the theme of Growth. Growth, which lifts countless millions out of poverty, also has a huge and potentially unsustainable environmental cost. It presents one of the great conundrums facing humanity in the early decades of the twenty-first century.

Sir David said, "Any one of these twelve artists would be a worthy winner."

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Cookstoves: "secret weapon against poverty and climate change"

Anne Wheldon, Senior Advisor for the Ashden Awards, will be giving a talk in central London tomorrow evening: 'Stoking up a cookstove revolution: The secret weapon against poverty and climate change'.

The event will be held at: The Carpenters Arms Pub, 12 Seymour Place (Marylebone), London, W1H 7NA Time: 18.30-20.30 Admission is free. The event is hosted by HEDON's London RIG. More information.

See also on this blog:

"This could be as transformative as bednets or even vaccines." Hillary Clinton Video.
Prospects Rise for Clean Cooking in Poor Places (New York Times)
Clinton unveils U.S. funds for clean cookstove push (Reuters)
Secretary of State Clinton announces global cookstove initiative (Nature)
Hillary Clinton, cookstoves and "The Girl Effect". Watch a short film about why girls hold the key to transforming the world (Salon)
How Hillary Clinton's clean stoves will help African women (Guardian)
For more on stoves: Stoking up a cookstove revolution (Ashden Awards)
See also: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and Hillary Clinton calls clean cookstoves a "cross-cutting issue"
And for some Ashden award-winning stove projects, go to: TWP/AHDESA, GERES Cambodia and Aprovecho/SSM.

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Blog Action Day announces 'water' as this year's topic

Early this morning, Blog Action Day announced that the topic for October 15 is 'water'. (Last year it was climate change; the year before it was poverty.) The Ashden Awards blog is one of nearly 800 blogs that have signed up to write about water that Friday.

Blog Action Day brings together bloggers from around the world to post about the same issue on the same day "with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action".

Last year 13,606 bloggers from 156 countries joined in the conversation about climate change.

We'll be blogging news on October 15 about Ashden Awards winners, such as: IDEI, CRELUZ, Practical Action and AIDFI (currently nominated for World Challenge award).

As Mary Robinson said in New York last week: "Water is the oil of the 21st century and waste is the gold." Maybe waste will be next year's topic.

From 2009: We've signed up, have you? and Svati Bhogle, from TIDE, a 2008 Ashden Award winner, writes on last year's Blog Action Day about "the efficient use of energy, use as different from abuse in the developed world and misuse in the developing world."

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Appropedia

Appropedia is a website that facilitates learning and collaboration on appropriate technology, with the goals of poverty reduction and international development. The Ashden Awards has a page in there, and over the coming months more information on our winners and their work will be added.

Visit the site here: www.appropedia.org

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