[Stoves] FW: New York Times: Toxic Smoke Is Africa’s Quiet Killer. An Entrepreneur Says His Fix Can Make a Fortune

[Nikhil Desai]

Crispin:

I believe I reviewed the carbon finance deal for this on this list earlier
this year. It met the World Bank CIF rules under C-Dev. I don't now
remember who bears the risk of non-performance; maybe it's a grant without
performance requirements.

It is an error on your and your correspondent's part to think that carbon
credits are available for forest protection.

Nor are they available for reduction of the "toxic smoke."

But NYT is easy to fool because its readers are ready to believe convenient
fiction.

This has been going on since around 1992 when AES planted CO2 offsetting
trees in a Belize forest. It all depends on paying glib bean-counters to
define project boundaries, hypothetical baselines, and expensive
certification methods. There's money for consultants.

I know. Christiana Figueres and I used to trade jokes about such 25 years
ago.

The CDM, Gold Standard, and aDALY games are more or less the same. There is
no problem to be solved, so it doesn't matter if any is solved, so long as
gentlemen's agreements are recorded. With due payments.

Nikhil


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*



On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 3:37 PM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Paul
>
> I was discussing this with someone off list and they made the following
> observation, which seems relevant. They asked:
>
> Is Inyenyeri solving a non existent problem?
>
> The question is relevant because there are not forests left in Rwanda. The
> cutting of the remaining national forest has been stopped (securing the
> habitat of the mountain gorillas, mainly).  All wood comes from farmers
> that grow trees as a crop. This applies as well to the charcoal trade which
> is legal and sustainable.
>
> Where is the wood coming from? As I understand the project when I reviewed
> it, the wood is brought to the pelleting house by people who trade it on a
> discounted mass basis for pellets. The rural community is therefore doing
> the foraging. They have to get wood somehow to cook, but when they do, they
> can take it to the processing centre and get bags of pellets in return – no
> money involved.
>
> In town, the pellets are sold. The town pellets come from the discounted
> exchange in the rural area.
>
> So…does the project still work this way?  If so, how is a carbon credit
> being calculated? There are no forests to “save” so the collection of wood
> is sustainable.  Isn’t some unsustainable fraction required for CDM credits
> to apply? Plus additionality (look it up).
>
> I think it would be helpful if the project financing model were explained
> in a way that helped us to know how to replicate it.
>
> Much appreciated.
>
> Crispin
>
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