[Stoves] News: GACC and CCAP launch "Urban Health and Short-Lived-Climate-Pollutants Reduction Project.”

Sat Jan 7 09:34:46 CST 2017

Dear Stovers

What on earth is a “clean fuel”?

Thanks
Crispin

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Traveller
Sent: 7-Jan-17 09:24
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: [Stoves] News: GACC and CCAP launch "Urban Health and Short-Lived-Climate-Pollutants Reduction Project.”

Alliance promotes climate and health co-benefits of cookstoves<http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/12-20-2016-alliance-promotes-climate-and-health-co-benefits-of-cookstoves.html>, 20 December 2016.
"To influence policy decisions of relevant ministries in Ghana, the Alliance is working with leading experts and partners, including Berkeley Air Monitoring Group, UrbanEmissions, and Dr. Ajay Pillarisetti to measure the burden of disease from household air pollution in Accra, the contribution of household energy consumption to ambient air pollution, and the potential reductions in exposure and resulting burden of disease due to a range of household energy interventions."

I suppose you all know the story of Chicken Little<http://www.worldstory.net/en/stories/chicken_little.html>. For that chicken, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

For our Global Alliance of Confident Chickens - it is "Look, look! I am carrying the sky over my head."

In its 2016 Progress Report<http://cleancookstoves.org/resources/reports/2016progress.html>, it boasts"Based on results reported by partners this year and careful analyses of the trends in available data, an estimated 20.6 million stoves and fuels were distributed in 2015, of which 13 million (63%) were clean and/or efficient." (See chart below).

What did GACC have to do with it, and how did it cook up these numbers - total, "clean", "efficient"? I even wonder what "distributed" means and why the "Global Total Stove and Fuel Distribution" was supposedly close to zero in 2010 and is projected to rise to 300 million by 2020 [What kind of brainlessness does it take to imply "300 million fuel"?]

For Ghana, it says "Ghana has seen steady advancement in transforming the cookstoves and fuels sector in 2016. As part of the government’s efforts to reduce deforestation and provide a cleaner cooking fuel, Ghana’s Petroleum Minister Hon. Emmanuel Buah launched a program to provide households with cooking gas connections. The program has distributed 70,000 LPG cylinders to families across six regions."

WHOA!! Ghana started LPG production in 1981 and had 600,000 LPG cylinders in 1997<https://www.esmap.org/sites/esmap.org/files/Rpt_Ghanalpgquayefoli.pdf> already. What if anything did GACC have to do with these 70,000 cylinders? (Give GACC CEO - potentate - credit for giving no credit in the Progress Report to any other GACC staff. Did she hire them?)

Now Ghana is going to have the world's largest LPG-fired power plant<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/ge-venture-to-build-world-s-largest-lpg-power-plant-in-ghana>. Credit to GACC?

Is GACC a marketer for BAMG and vice versa? These two private organizations are gallivanting around the world to drum up more money for themselves. All in the name of the poor and without a mandate or competence.

Any pretense that some HAPIT modeling will show enough "health co-benefits" to "influence policy decisions of relevant ministries in Ghana" betrays utter ignorance of last 100 years' history of shifting cooking to gas and electricity, in and outside the homes.

Nobody has to date published any quantified claims of health benefits of modern energy transitions in the rich countries over that period.

But somehow it is only the poor who need expert lecturing - and well-baked models - to be convinced, of "potential" reductions in the burden of disease.

What is the baseline for the burden of disease? Under what assumptions? How long will this charade go on?
And why is GACC babbling "a range of household energy interventions" in Accra when, from whatever I can tell, all it can take credit for in Ghana is on gas.
Why don't we call it Global Alliance for Gas [GAG]?

Because it is a one-person radio of the Global Alliance for Boast [GAB]?

For all her appearances, is GACC a one-woman show?

Well, Hillary is another one. Though now she is said to be mulling NYC mayorship<http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/opinion/sunday/rumors-of-hillary-clintons-comeback.html>.

There is plenty of PM2.5 in NYC. SO2 levels have declined<https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/environmental/comm-air-survey-08-14.pdf> recently but PM2.5 levels still remain high near boilers. The queens of Chappaqua and Washington can partner with Trump Organization to replace all the boilers with electricity - solar and wind - or build new real estate. Win, Win, Win!! Goldman Sachs is drooling.

Nikhil

PS: I like the idea of SLCP reduction; wrote a concept note back in 2005.Ghana became one of the pioneering members of something called clean air and climate coalition (or some other mixture of these words), started by or under the leadership of Hillary circa 2011. Jerry Brown has signed in an SLCP law. GACC and BAMG are probably looking to monetize health and climate benefits from every gas stove for individual customers and take a middleman's cut. Poverty mixed with ignorance and absence of laws is a gold mine.

[Inline image 2]
Source: GACC

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