Wood, wind, & water
Bishop, Jordan
Report from Nairobi WOOD, WIND, & WATER CONFERENCE ON RENEWABLE ENERGY THE UNITED NATIONS Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy opened August 10 in Nairobi, Kenya, with speeches from...
...preparations . . . told a reporter...
...proposal...
...Indira Gandhi, M. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin of Sweden, President Seaga of Jamaica, and of course President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, the host country...
...The horse-trading goes on, and some of the questions are substantive...
...On several occasions official delegates met with groups of NGOs, and Enrique Iglesias, Secretary General of the Conference, appeared twice at the NGO Forum...
...Few European or third-world delegates, or even Canadians, had ever heard of Mr...
...In both cases there may be some foundation for these attitudes, given the great variety of NGOs...
...As I write the game is not over...
...Only . . . if you wanted to have a new fund or a new institution,' says Charles Weill, science and technology adviser to the World Bank...
...China leads most of the world in extensive reforestation, some eighty thousand mini- and micro-hydroelectric installations in isolated areas, and widespread use of "bio-digesters" which provide bio-gas for cooking - thus saving wood and land from further erosion...
...All the same, it was fascinating to watch an informal exchange between an American NGO representative and an engineer from the official Chinese delegation...
...One American observer here at the conference, Hazel Henderson, suggested that these nations may be forced to play their last card if effective relief is not forthcoming: a collective default on international debts...
...Parallel to the official conference, several hundred NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) delegates from around the world held a forum of their own, with a plethora of workshops on wind and water and wood and anything else that seemed relevant...
...government...
...They often represent a grassroots involvement vital for the solution of energy and development problems at the local level...
...The North, on the whole, appears to be more interested in "high" renewable technology...
...The subject of the conference is of vital importance to many countries, but apparently an exercise in boredom for others...
...In many areas, NGOs are engaged in projects at the village level, although third-world NGOs are at times viewed with some suspicion by their governments, and most NGOs with some condescension by development professionals from the North...
...sent this report...
...G-77 wants a solid program with some teeth, prestige, and money, and the G-77 proposal for the Plan of Action was the most detailed and comprehensive...
...The conference simply established a relatively powerless body within the United Nations to coordinate UN renewable energy programs and to report within a year on the need for new institutional or funding arrangements...
...Behind the wrangling about language and structures and money, there are some serious questions...
...delegation...
...The UN does not command...
...by most people in developed nations is the fact that {he fuel-wood crisis in many third-world rural areas is much more serious than our own much-touted energy crisis...
...Women (another forgotten majority) must often spend hours gathering firewood for cooking as woodlands are depleted, resulting in serious erosion, accelerated silting of hydroelectric dams, and loss of valuable farmland...
...JORDAN BISHOP (Jordan Bishop is a member of E-4-D- Energy for Development - a coalition of Canadian environmental and development NGOs formed around the Nairobi conference, from where he sent this report...
...In some parts of India, the solution of this problem is a precondition for the establishment of many small and large hydroelectric projects...
...Aided and abetted by their good friends from the Soviet Union, the U. S. has done its best to prevent the establishment of a really high priority UN committee to deal with these questions, as well as any serious multilateral funding...
...The situation is very serious, although some questions that lie close to the surface here will become fully visible only in the coming North-South meeting at Canciin, Mexico...
...In terms of raising consciousness and focusing attention on renewable energy, it was very successful...
...that he was 'thrilled1 Was the conference a waste of money and effort...
...It should be noted that the Chinese are not engaging in any flag-waving about this...
...Iglesias stressed the need to strengthen third-world NGOs in particular...
...Barely recognized What was the final result of the Nairobi meeting from which Jordan Bishop sent the accompanying report...
...This outcome pleased the United States...
...Yet some who have studied the question estimate that merely for the world to hold its own in fuelwood, something like $2 billion annually for five years would be required...
...Given the character of UN politics, this has to be interpreted as a bid for high profile and prestige...
...In the September 11 issue of Science, Colin Norman reports, "In the end, the industrialized North and the developing South agreed to disagree...
...On the other hand, G-77 objects strenuously to the original EC-10 proposal to bury this concern in the already-established UN bureaucracy by relegating this function to an existing committee on natural resources, as well as to funding by shuffling already committed UN funds (a U.S...
...we shall learn the score when the final Plan of Action is approved...
...Many governments were forced to consider for the first time the potential role of new and renewable energy...
...They came to Nairobi to learn...
...James Stromayer, who coordinated U.S...
...This may not have killed the conference - in any event, few would be so undiplomatic as to suggest this - and a Plan of Action is being hammered out in committee meetings which are closed to the press...
...Women in Kenya dramatized the situation with a fuelwood march on the second day of the conference and have organized an extensive tree-planting campaign...
...Yet their importance came closer to being recognized in this conference than in any previous UN meeting, and Mr...
...This was, rightly or wrongly, widely interpreted as indicating the low priority given to sun and wind and water and wood and all the rest by the U.S...
...Report from Nairobi WOOD, WIND, & WATER CONFERENCE ON RENEWABLE ENERGY THE UNITED NATIONS Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy opened August 10 in Nairobi, Kenya, with speeches from Mrs...
...The American was interested in Chinese know-how...
...Stanton D. Anderson, the head of the U.S...
...No one really wants another big bureaucracy to promote NRSEs (New and Renewable Sources of Energy...
...The polarities are sharp: the Group of 77 (G-77, consisting of the third-world countries and OPEC), the EEC (EC-10), the Nordic countries, the USSR, the U.S., China, and Japan are all ranged in varying position, with the main tension generated between G-77 and the developed nations...
...Some of the NGOs, representing a wide range of both environmental and developmental groups (one NGO noted that the Friends of the Earth could have called a world meeting and achieved a quorum) were engaged in lobbying official delegations as well as in the interchange of ideas among themselves...
...The wet-blanket approach of the United States, following drastic domestic budget cuts for new and renewable energy sources, did not exactly encourage a major effort on the part of other developed nations...
...Frustration runs high in many third-world nations as energy bills and debt service consume all or most of their export earnings...
Vol. 108 • September 1981 • No. 17
