ICGC Brown Bag Friday, March 30 12pm, 537 Heller Hall
Sarah Burridge, PhD Student, Conservation Biology:
Cookstoves and Carbon: Exploring the Unique Opportunities and Challenges
of Small-Scale Carbon Finance in India
High-efficiency cookstoves have received a great deal of attention recently as an innovative technology that addresses multiple global issues simultaneously. These stoves, which typically replace open-fire cooking in non-industrialized contexts, reduce the emission of gases and particulates that contribute to numerous health problems as well as to climate change. Though NGOs worldwide have run cookstove distribution programs since the 1980s, the recent focus on stoves' climatic benefits has changed the way that many of these programs operate by allowing the cost of these stoves to be paid for via the sale of carbon offset credits.
As cookstove distribution projects begin to take advantage of this new funding source, a number of questions are emerging regarding the suitability of this framework for cookstove distribution. I will explore the various opportunities and challenges for both climate and health that are presented by this
new approach to cookstove distribution, drawing from my preliminary research and pre-dissertation fieldwork in India.
