The last special issue of the Energy for Sustainable Development journal is dedicated to the subject of climate change mitigation and sustainable development. It was issued in the occasion of the expected launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Fourth Assessment Report.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are among the most promising options for reducing CO2 emissions. Three papers in this issue focus on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), especially on energy efficiency projects which can make a major contribution to climate change mitigation, even though there are few CDM projects in this area.

Another paper shows that improved energy efficiency together with an increased use of renewable energy can supply Brazil's electricity demand in 2020 with virtually no increase in CO2 emissions. This paper summarizes the results of a study commissioned by WWF-Brazil to the Latin American office of the International Energy Initiative (read more).

IEI would also like to invite you to subscribe to the Journal Energy for Sustainable Development (ESD), which is unique among energy journals for its focus on efficient energy production and use in developing countries.

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IEI’s regional initiative for Asia (REI-Asia), located in Bangalore (India), has recently received green light to carry out a one-year project to demonstrate the operation of a village-based energy enterprise.

 

The objective is to promote rural enterprises that deliver improved household energy-based services and to sustain this delivery through integration with income-generation.

While the productive use of energy for poverty reduction (for example, lighting services) is well- known, REI-Asia is focusing on energy for domestic cooking, because it does not yield financial returns and is therefore usually ignored in energy- development plans.

The proposed scheme is unique because of its reach, financing mechanism, and innovative use of proven technologies and operational structures. The feasibility of such energy-development enterprises, with suitable modification for other agro-climatic regions, will facilitate large-scale replication.

The chief sponsor of this project is the Wuppertal Institute of Climate, Environment and Energy (Germany) through its WISION Sustainable Energy Project Support programme.

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) commissioned the Latin American Regional office of the International Energy Initiative (REI-LA) to collect industrial energy use and energy efficiency data and CO2 emissions for the past 15-25 years in Brazil. IEA is preparing a publication on indicators for industrial energy use and CO2 emissions worldwide.

The REI-LA work focuses on the following sectors: iron and steel, chemicals/petrochemicals, cement, pulp and paper, and some non-ferrous metals (for instance, aluminium). Such sectors account for the bulk of the energy use and CO2 emissions in Brazilian manufacturing industry.

 

Scientists have never been so sure that the human being is inducing climate change since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its First Assessment Report in 1990.

The IPCC released on February 2nd the report "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis", which is the first of four reports that will be published in 2007 and form the Fourth Assessment Report. The last one, the Third Assessment Report, was released in 2001.

With its findings, the IPCC concludes that global climate change is "very likely" to have been human- induced, indicating a 90% probability of occurrence. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered as the gas with most climate change impact, thus the burning of fossil fuels as the main source of human-induced emissions.

The temperature on earth has increased by 0.74ºC for the last 100 years. Out of the last 12 years, 11 are registered as the warmest once since global temperature measurements started in 1850.

It is claimed that we are only experiencing the mere start of climate change, and the IPCC assumes it very likely that climate changes will be of larger magnitude than those observed in the previous century. For the next couple of decades one expects an average temperature rise of 0.2ºC annually.

Volume 2 of the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report was released in early April. The second volume deals primarily with the effects of global warming, and is called "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability".

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This section provides news and information about relevant initiatives regarding the progress of sustainable energy efforts from the developing world. IEI is currently establishing a network of contact persons for dissemination of relevant sustainable energy news. This is a great opportunity to make projects from various parts of the world known. Please let us know if you are interested in being such a contact person. We will be happy to acknowledge names of all contributors in the newsletter.

Bio-Ethanol as a Household Cooking Fuel in Malawi
From Donna Skordili from the HED ON Household Energy Network

Malawi is one of the world's least developed countries where population pressures and an over-reliance on traditional biomass fuels have led to deforestation.

The report presents an assessment of the SuperBlu Stove, developed to use bio-ethanol already produced in Malawi from sugar industry waste as part of a fuel- blending programme. Read more

Bolivia launches national campaign for clean cooking energy
From Donna Skordili from the HED ON Household Energy Network

Within the next three years 100, 000 households in Bolivia will cook smoke-free. This is the aim of the ambitious campaign "Cocinas para una vida mejor" recently launched by the Bolivian Minister of Public Works and the German and Dutch Embassies.

Around 9.5 million people live in Bolivia, more than half of them in rural areas. 75% of the rural population use wood as cooking fuel for their daily meals. Read more

 

Contact Persons List

Carlos Jàcome, UNDP Consultant for the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Equador)
Carmen Armstrong, Regional Manager of the REEEP Secretariat for Southern Africa (South Africa)
Donna Skordili, HEDON Household Energy Network
Dr. M.A. Rashid Sarkar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Bangladesh)
François Boutin, Québec Secretariat of the Interparliamentary Confederation of the Americas - COPA (Canada)
John Ledger, Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa (South Africa)
Joseph Arineitwe Ndemere, Makarere University (Uganda)
Lu Zeng'an (China)
Lucy M. Khalema Redeby, Khalema Redeby Consultancy Services (Lesotho)
Martin Obermaier, Energy Planning Program - COPPE – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Pham Hoang Luong, Institute of Heat Engineering and Refrigeration, Department of Thermal Energy Equipment, Hanoi University of Technology (Vietnam)
Prof. Dieter Holm, ISES Africa (South Africa)
Prof. Sugathapala, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka)
Sibusiso Mimi, REEEP Secretariat for Southern Africa (South Africa)
Solomon Quansah, Ghana Solar Energy Society - GHASES (Ghana)
Stephen Karekezi, Director of the AFREPREN and IEI's board member (Kenya)

 

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