Climate Change and Mobile Technology

Foreign Policy have a really interesting interview on climate change by Bjorn Lomborg.

Excerpts: 

FP: In 2005, you wrote in Foreign Policy that those of us in the rich world have reached the point where we can afford to think about the environment, whereas the developing world really can't. If we're talking about a research and development solution, isn't that really just a developed world solution? Is there some sort of role for the developing world in this also?

BL: I think we need to own up to the fact that the developing world has much more important priorities. We're unaware that half the world's population still lacks simple things like food and education and water and sanitation and health care. Worrying about global warming [that will happen] 100 years from now is a slight luxury to those people. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but it means that we should also recognize that there are many other things we should be focusing on.

The only real climate policy that we have right now is the EU 2020 policy -- that they're going to reduce [emissions by] 20 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020. The cost is about $250 billion. Let me give you a better way to spend that money. If we spent $100 billion on research and development into green energy, we would do much, much more good. If the EU continues to spend $250 billion for the rest of century, they will reduce temperatures by 0.1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Wow! I'm really sure our descendents are going to be really really happy.

If we invested that $100 billion dollars [in research] there's a good chance we will be able to cut maybe two degrees Fahrenheit off the temperature by the end of the century. Then, we should invest about $50 billion in different ways to adapt to climate change -- that's of course especially [important] in the Third World, to make sure that they can actually deal with climate change. And then I propose that we should spend about $1 billion dollars in research and development into geoengineering to make sure that we have an insurance policy if something really bad is lurking in the corners of climate-change research. The last $100 billion should be spent on fixing all of the other problems in the world: Give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare and education to virtually everyone on the planet. We could do that for about $100 billion a year.

Source: A Changed Climate Skeptic?

Also,

The M-Banking Revolution

Why cell phones will do more for the developing world than laptops ever could.

Amie Zimmerman a director Global Assets Project at the New America Foundation

and Jamie Holmes a program associate puts forward the case of  cell phones.

Excerpts:

The potential positive economic effects in Kenya alone are striking: this year, Safaricom projects it will transfer the equivalent of 20 percent of Kenya's GDP through M-Pesa. One scholar who has studied M-Pesa, Olga Morawczynski of the University of Edinburgh, estimates that rural households that are mobile money subscribers see their incomes increase 5 to 30 percent. And though an increase in income is often only a short-term poverty solution, savings and asset-building, as encouraged by programs like M-Kesho, move people toward sustainable economic independence in the long term. Plus, the interest on loans through such programs is usually far lower than what you'd get with an informal moneylender, meaning that the risk of accruing debt is minimal.

Source: The M-Banking Revolution

Copenhagen Climate Conference: Which way forward?

Heinrich Boll Stiftung foundation held is it first public forum for this year on 21/01/10 at the Laico Regency. Unlike most of it’s previous public engagements which normally revolve around gender themes. Heinrich Boll Foundation this time wanted to engage the public on the number one global issue which is climate change. Coming head over heels of COP 15 it did bring a lot of stakeholders to the meeting and new faces to this public discourse.

The panelists for this discourse were;
• Dr. Alfred Omenya-Consultant & Lecturer at UoN (Architecture)
• Hon. David Koech-Chair, Parliamentary Network on Renewable Energy & Climate Change (PANERECC) & Chair, Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, Science & Technology
• Mithika Mwenda- Coordinator, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)
• Suresh Patel-Businessman & Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) representative on KEPSA Environment sector board
All the above speakers were delegates of COP 15 and can be considered authorities on the issue at hand.

Dr. Alfred Omenya’s presentation was very insightful and had clear grasp of issues of climate change and the politics behind climate change. I got to learn that Africa had a common negotiating platform that it had agreed on to the run-up of COP 15. This platform is Algiers negotiating platform/Africa’s common position.
This was negotiated by all African Environment Ministers in: The African Ministerial Conference on Environment which was held in Algiers and reported their deliberations back to the African Union heads of states. This was to be adopted by all African heads of states as the negotiating platform in COP15.

Hon. David Koech informed us of the meetings that were held to the run-up of COP 15.
One of this was the summit held in Nairobi tot the run-up of COP 15. This had ‘one Africa, one voice, one position’ as its clarion call. This brought about African’s to speak in one voice. What was note worth was that parliamentarians, civic society and activist were in the same bandwagon!
However, Hon. Koech was of the view that recently developing countries such as India, China & Brazil were the main obstacles of a comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen. Also, oil producing countries were a stumbling block and poor negotiating skills used by the African delegation to COP 15.

Coming back to Kenya Hon Koech had the following sentiments:
i. Environmental conservation should be mainstreamed in our constitution e.g. as is the case in Nigeria which has a National Environmental & Climate Change Commission.
ii. Have legislations on climate change.
iii. Recruit more members as champions of climate change.
iv. Focus on alternative sources of energy such as wind (key), geothermal and solar energy (as is the case in Denmark).
v. Encourage and improve negotiations
vi. Keep momentum on fight on climate change and get citizens planting trees.

Mr. Suresh Patel gave the business side of climate change. He advocated for Kenyan’s to start green industries and for business to adopt green practices in their places of work.

Mr. Mithika Mwenda gave a hawkish presentation of us against them i.e. the developing countries against developed countries and some of the policies that g77 was adopting in the run-up to the Mexico and German conferences.