[Stoves] USA senate bill on stoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Huck and List

 

Pledges were made on 20-21 November one of which, for example, was from
USAID. It was a pledge made conditionally based on 'funding being
available'. 

 

USAID cannot spend funds 'as it wishes' from a pool - there is a budget with
goals and items. As all spending by the US government is approved basically
in the form of a law, it requires the Senate to pass a Bill allowing USAID
to give money to the GACC (or anyone else). As you can well imagine, USAID
falls under the State Department (Foreign Affairs) so expenditure will be
made in support of the foreign policy objectives of the US Government. One
of those is to support improved stoves and the stove industry.

 

A friend of mine who has worked for the State Department and USAID explained
to me that these two bodies have quite different 'corporate cultures'.
USAID tends to have far more leeway in-country to 'spend wisely and
effectively' with certain autonomy to 'do good' in what are often changing
circumstances while the State Department sticks pretty closely to the letter
of the plan - what he called a check-box approach (goal achieved.check).  As
this funding is internal, not going to a country mission, (the GACC is a
project under the UN Foundation which is a project directed by a number of
interests - see the info
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Foundation>  online) the
control of what happens with the money will be under the GACC Board, not
USAID. I say that because I have not seen any indication there are strings
attached but could be completely wrong - maybe they have to attach strings.
Some GACC funding from donors is tied to particular activities in the same
way that the UN Foundation gives funds to the UN for specific projects.
Behind the scenes it is complicated.

 

There is a great deal of funding available for improved stove programmes
around the world, as there has been for about 30 years. In the West the
activities in China and India are often overlooked. They were by far the
largest projects undertaken previously and are about to be expanded again.
China has already spent billions on improved stoves.  

 

Germany and the Netherlands (GIZ, DGIS and SNV) have traditionally been the
major stove project funders in the West. France is stepping up. Asian Dev
Bank is joining in (they serve 42 countries, total but the stove thing is
new).  Private funding has come from BP, Shell and soon maybe, Total - that
would be 3 of the 6 Supermajors at least touched the subject. 

 

I am not sure where to fit Indonesia into to mix. They have one of the
largest and most expensive and fastest rollout for improved stoves in the
world centered around LPG. South Africa, Nigeria, India and many others have
some form of subsidy or tax relief for kerosene which is a step up from wood
(in most cases). In November the WHO issued a document stating that kerosene
cannot be burned cleanly and should be removed from the fuel mix, building
on similar things written by Prof Kirk Smith from Berkeley. This
extraordinary position is bound to come undone but a lot of damage would be
done by then if it was implemented. Reducing subsidies even slightly sends
millions of people back to using biomass - immediately. This has been
documented well in Indonesia. 

 

India is contemplating the move (removing the subsidy) right now perhaps
based on this extraordinary claim by the WHO that a fuel can be labelled
'dirty' because some of the performance of some of the crap products used to
burn it badly.  Apparently people are not aware that jet fuel is kerosene
with little antifreeze in it. Japan is a world leader in clean combustion of
kerosene. Japan and RSA have the most demanding standards for combustion
(CO) but it can easily be tightened by 90% with existing technologies. 

 

There is always a certain level of madness and misrepresentation about
anything to do with energy so don't get too excited. Everyone will deal with
it as best they can to stop people freezing in the dark while gnawing on raw
potatoes. If you want to be a hero, now's the time. Make better stoves.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

 

 

Huck etal

 

            I answer with little expertise- so hope that someone from GACC
can also answer.  My guess is that the last Congress' bill has already
served much of its purpose.  GACC raised a large amount of money not very
long ago, with the US government (State and USAId maybe being the largest
agency donors) giving the most  (Canada next??). But the funding problem
hasn't gone away and stove funding is still way less than $1 billion.

 

            GACC is the only group I see on the horizon with an
international reputation to take on this sort of funding.  I wish they were
doing more along the lines of this list, but they will be attending the
ETHOS meeting.  Some of us will be reporting back in about a month - and can
maybe better answer your good question.  The important point is that the US
Congress is reactive - and better stoves can be very much in the US
interest.  Any bill keeps an issue alive - and bills only get passed if
support is being received.

 

Ron  

 

(I worked two years for the US Congress)

 

 

On Dec 29, 2014, at 1:21 PM, Huck Rorick <huckrorick at groundwork.org
<mailto:huckrorick at groundwork.org> > wrote:





I skimmed the article and the PDF.  I'm not sure I am clear on what the bill
does.  Would anyone want to comment, explain?  It seems like it is aiming
funding specifically at Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves?  And doing so
with funds several agencies already have?

If someone felt like elaborating on what it would do that would be useful.

 

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