Into Africa

Efficient charcoal stoves, boilers that run on sugarcane waste… Climate Care’s Tom Morton tells Michael Buick about the carbon-reducing projects taking shape in Kenya.

Michael Buick: So why Nairobi for the new office?

Tom Morton: It’s a well-known story that East Africa has very few projects funded through the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). And yet on visits there Mike Mason (Climate Care’s founder) and I had seen a multitude of opportunities. To find carbon reduction projects you really need to be here on the ground with a team of local staff.

MB: What projects are under way?

TM: Here in Kenya we’re working to upgrade
a sugar mill with more efficient boilers. These will run off the sugarcane waste (‘bagasse’) which currently rots in a big pile, producing methane. The bagasse will also power a generator, with any unused electricity exported to the national grid.

In Uganda we’re running a cooking project that sells 20,000 improved stoves a year in Kampala. Each of these saves about 1.5 tonnes of CO2 annually, and drastically cuts the amount of charcoal needed for cooking. The next step is improvement in the charcoal production industry, which we’re actively looking into.

MB: With the recent backlash against carbon offsetting, how are you making sure consumers get the reductions they pay for?

TM: For the sugar mill improvements, we’ve applied to the UN for Gold Standard CDM accreditation – only awarded to projects that meet strict sustainability criteria.

As for the Ugandan project, because the UN is still undecided about whether to include efficient stoves in the CDM, we’ve put it through the no-less-robust Gold Standard for voluntary emissions reductions. It’s the first efficient stove project approved under the scheme and we hope it will open the door for this technology to access a lot more carbon funding around the world. We also hope the government’s Voluntary Code will acknowledge standards such as this, which support important projects that are currently overlooked.

“Each household in Kampala typically emits the same carbon as the average home in the UK – by burning charcoal”

MB: What do you say to people who claim that offsets simply dig rich nations out of a hole at the expense of poorer ones?

TM: That they’re missing the point. Carbon offsets can be a real tool to finance equipment that improves quality of life while also tackling climate change. It’s often assumed that developing nations have miniscule carbon emissions – mainly because inventories focus on fossil fuel use. Our research, however, shows that each household in Kampala typically emits five tonnes of CO2 by burning charcoal – the same as the average home in the UK. Add to that the fact that wood is often sourced unsustainably.

This isn’t finger pointing, it’s just a statement of fact.
It’s essential that we fund these technologies as well as working for reductions at home, and both are achieved by a ‘reduce what you can, offset what you can’t’ approach.

MB: So how far can a simple stove help a country like Uganda to develop?

TM: It could save over 100 million tonnes
of CO2 a year if adopted across sub-Saharan Africa. That’s equivalent to taking 45 million cars off the road. The reduced wood consumption would save an area of forest
the size of England every year and 100 million families would have healthier homes thanks to reduced indoor air pollution. Our aim is to transform the market so these stoves become the norm, not the exception – much in the same way as performance ratings have changed the market for white goods in the UK.

MB: Is there an appetite for change out there?

TM: At a workshop on carbon finance that we held in Nairobi recently we had 50 organisations turn up. These were all people wanting to improve Africa’s access to energy services, and to do it in a clean way through carbon funds. While there are clearly challenges facing such investment in sub-Saharan Africa, carbon finance has huge potential to get things moving. Our sense is that the tide is definitely turning.

Tom Morton is managing director of Pioneer Carbon, Climate Care’s project funding arm, and Michael Buick is Climate Care’s communications manager. Pioneer Carbon also has offices in Turkey, Chile and Mauritius.

Climate Care is a Forum for the Future partner

5 January 2008

Michael Buick

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