Secretary Clinton is promoting cookstoves to save the world. Seriously.

Posted By P.J. Aroon Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 12:13 AM

Secretary Clinton today launched an initiative that could save millions of lives around the world -- the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership to which the U.S. government is committing $51 million over the next five years.

Sounds a bit wacky, but this effort will improve health, empower women and girls, and mitigate climate change. For real. As Clinton explained in a speech today in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative, where she was escorted to the podium by her husband, Bill Clinton:

The World Health Organization considers smoke from dirty stoves to be one of the five most serious health risks that face people in poor, developing countries. Nearly 2 million people die from its effects each year, more than twice the number from malaria. And because the smoke contains greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, as well as black carbon, it contributes to climate change.

There are other consequences as well. In conflict zones like the Congo, the journeys that women must take to find scarce fuel [such as firewood] put them at increased risk of violent and sexual assault. Even in safer areas, every hour spent collecting fuel is an hour not spent in school or tending crops or running a business.

People have cooked over open fires and dirty stoves for all of human history, but the simple fact is they are slowly killing millions of people and polluting the environment.

The solution? Clean, efficient, afforable cookstoves that cost as little as $25. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves aims for 100 million households getting clean cookstoves by 2020. The initiative will involve research and development for improved designs and lower costs, an effort to create a market for the stoves (which will include lowering trade barriers and fostering public awareness), and weaving clean stoves into international development programs, including women-owned microfinance networks.

At the end of her speech, Clinton asked us to do the following:

The next time you sit down with your own family to eat, please take a moment to imagine the smell of smoke, feel it in your lungs, see the soot building up on the walls, and then come find us at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. Hearths, whatever they look like, and wherever we gather around them, where we tell our stories and pass down our values, bind families together. And the benefits from this initiative will be cleaner and safer homes, and that will, in turn, ripple out for healthier families, stronger communities, and more stable societies.

And, check out the video:

Mario Tama/Getty Images

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Clinton at Copenhagen: 'We're running out of time'

Posted By P.J. Aroon Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 3:47 PM

Over at Passport, the top story on today's Morning Brief is Secretary Clinton's last-minute efforts at the climate-change talks in Copenhagen:

In an 11th hour proposal to save the ailing UN Climate talks in Copenhagen and have some agreement on the table by the time U.S. President Barack Obama comes to town tomorrow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed that developed countries including the United States come up with $100 billion per year over the next decade to help poor countries fight climate change. This represented a tactical shift from the Obama administration, which has been reluctant to put a dollar amount on aid as climate legislation remains stuck in the senate.

"We're running out of time," Clinton said.

Clinton appealed to countries to drop the "us versus them" mentality when it comes to climate change and unite in order to come to an accord:

We have lost precious time in these past days. In the time we have left here, it can no longer be about us versus them -- this group of nations pitted against that group. We all face the same challenge together."

I hope Clinton's star power will get countries to come to an agreement, but I don't feel too optimistic about global accords given that the Doha round of trade talks has been going on since 2001 over at the World Trade Organization. Plus, as the recent FP article "Recipe for Failure" details, computer modeling by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts that the Copenhagen talks will fail -- and the CIA says he has a 90 percent accuracy rate.

Photo: OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images

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Things get a bit heated on climate change

Posted By P.J. Aroon Monday, July 20, 2009 - 3:39 PM

July 20, 2009 | PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday, things got a bit heated between Secretary Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh when it came to climate change.

As the two toured a "green" building near New Delhi while dozens of cameras rolled, Ramesh said, "India's position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets."

Clinton responded: "No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty. …We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon footprint."

After the tour, the U.S. and Indian delegations had a closed-door meeting that once again began with tension. Ramesh delivered a blunt four-minute opening statement declaring, "There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions."

Clinton countered that the per capita logic "loses force" as developing countries quickly become the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

Ramesh's rejoinder: "We look upon you suspiciously because you have not fulfilled what [developed countries] pledged to fulfill," referring to it as a "crisis of credibility."

After the meeting, though, Clinton announced that the discussion was "very fruitful" and pointed out, "We have many more areas of agreement than perhaps had been appreciated."

Climate change is definitely a sensitive issue for large and rapidly developing countries such as India and China. It can look hypocritical for rich countries to demand that poor countries curb emissions when rich countries themselves pollute more per capita and historically increased their pollution levels as their people became wealthier.

Clinton said it's possible to eliminate poverty and develop sustainably at the same time. I really hope these "green" technologies pull through to save the day. But even with green technologies and more environmental awareness, it's gonna be tough. Last Friday, the first Tata Nano was delivered.

Photo: PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images

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New special envoy on climate change

Posted By Megan Carpentier Monday, January 26, 2009 - 8:04 PM

Hot on the heels of President Obama's and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's selections of George Mitchell to be a special envoy to the Middle East and Richard Holbrooke to head up outreach to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Clinton announced the appointment of a new envoy...to Mother Earth.

After Barack Obama signed two executive orders on climate change this morning, during which he emphasized the need to start working quickly, Clinton announced the appointment of lawyer and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Todd Stern, to be the United States' special envoy on climate change. Garance Franke-Ruta of the Washington Post notes:

In the June 2007 issue of The American Interest, Washington lawyer Todd Stern and think tank executive William Antholis wrote a memo to the next president. Addressed from the "United States Department of Brainstorms" to "The 44th President of the United States," the action memorandum laid out the case for "creating the E-8" -- a novel international group uniting leading developed nations and developing ones for an annual gathering focused on combating global warming.

Stern was also the lead White House negotiator at the Kyoto negotiations, which ended in the signing of the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- one of many climate change initiatives the Clinton administration instigated that the Bush administration later repudiated. But it looks like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are going to help Stern and his work get more attention.

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Madam Secretary is an obsessive blog about all things Hillary Clinton. From her policies to her pantsuits, Madam Secretary delivers up-to-the-minute news, analysis, and gossip about America's top diplomat.