Foreign Policy Blogs

Kyoto Box

Here is a big boost for low-tech, low-cost, potentially very high-impact solutions to “dangerous anthropogenic interference” (DAI) with the climate system:  a solar-powered cooker that costs less than $5 to build.  I wrote about the FT’s Climate Change Challenge last month here.  The FT and its partners, Forum for the Future and HP, are providing exactly the kind of support for these sorts of critically important, innovative, and scalable projects that they need.

See this from the BBC on the winner, the Kyoto Box, including an interview with the inventor, Jon Bøhmer, who lays out all the many positives.  See also the FT article from today.  “Mr. Bøhmer hopes the box will be eligible for carbon credits, hence the name Kyoto box, making a yearly profit of €20-€30 (£18-£27) per stove, which would enable further expansion and easily cover the cost of replacing the cooker after five years.”

I love solar cookers and have written about them in several contexts including at Black Carbon and Solar Cookers.

 

Author

Bill Hewitt

Bill Hewitt has been an environmental activist and professional for nearly 25 years. He was deeply involved in the battle to curtail acid rain, and was also a Sierra Club leader in New York City. He spent 11 years in public affairs for the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation, and worked on environmental issues for two NYC mayoral campaigns and a presidential campaign. He is a writer and editor and is the principal of Hewitt Communications. He has an M.S. in international affairs, has taught political science at Pace University, and has graduate and continuing education classes on climate change, sustainability, and energy and the environment at The Center for Global Affairs at NYU. His book, "A Newer World - Politics, Money, Technology, and What’s Really Being Done to Solve the Climate Crisis," will be out from the University Press of New England in December.



Areas of Focus:
the policy, politics, science and economics of environmental protection, sustainability, energy and climate change

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