Carbon offset project in Eritrea: Program for Promotion of Efficient Cooking Stoves

In order to compensate for our emissions, we support a project which distributes efficient cooking stoves.

Project type

Energy efficiency demand side in a rural area

Type of certificate

VER (so called „verified emission reductions", or CO2 savings)

Quality standard

The project is taking place in the context of the recommendations given through the Kyoto Protocol. It is a contribution to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. These measures taken were validated as being a small CDM-Project (CDM falls under the Kyoto Protocols context for environment- friendly development aid).

700 tons VER from this project were bought to offset the Munich Re Foundation’s CO2 emissions for the year 2006. The project complements the Foundation’s existing activities in Eritrea.

Project background

Eritrean people traditionally cook using so called mogogo stoves. The energy ineffi-ciency of the traditional clay oven leads to wastage of firewood being responsible for at least 50% of the biomass energy consumption per household per year. This situation has motivated a state agency to develop an improved version of the stoves.

Since the use of the stoves is strongly embedded in the popular culture a breakout to alternative technologies is unlikely to happen in the short term. This project aims at a village by village transformation from the traditional inefficient stoves to the new more efficient ones leading to a considerable reduction in the consumption of wood fuel and thereby causing a reduction of the emissions released by the stoves. The project consists of the implementation of a program for the promotion of the improved stoves including the training of local artisans, the education of local communities in health and home issues and the promotion of supplies such fire grate, chimney and rain cap, etc. Even the lack of this equipment represents the main barrier for the construction of the new stoves. The revenues from the sale of VERs shall be use to finance this non-local cash costs.

Sustainable development

The stove program leads to additional sustainable benefits beyond the carbon emissions reductions. The stove program Due to the design faults of the traditional stoves the population is often suffering from respiratory and eye diseases.

As a result of both the decreased energy ex-penses and the reduced home labour (wood collection) the program generates indirectly additional income benefiting mainly the poor-est households. Therefore, the project signifi-cantly contributes to poverty alleviation in one of the least development countries of the world. Furthermore the decreased biomass harvesting for wood fuel contributes to alleviate the highly deforestation pressures. During the last 40 years more than 50% of the forest cover has been lost.

The aim of the project is to help increase the standard of living for the rural communities in Eritrea through the delivery of modern energy services while pro-tecting the environment. Over a period of 5 years, the project will generate emission reductions of 27,868 t CO2e.