The message is we really do not care. The fight is on semantics. The fight is “you first then me”. Fight is about who will make more money. The civil societies of many countries are also responsible this mess or should I say irresponsible.

There is an absolute lack of urgency among all parties towards poverty and climate change. people have come to enjoy and hope what we can do at next COP 18.

All the finest restaurants are booked, hotels are full – deals are being made – on the backs of the poor and the mother earth. There are two things missing here are solutions and reality.”

- Harish Hande, Selco

The above quote fairly summarizes a disconnect between the profit motives of large energy corporations that lobby the government and the need to provide access to sustainable energy to the masses. While designing energy solutions, it is important to consider inclusion of the large number of poor people who live in rural areas most of which are off the electricity grid. Not to forget the cost the people in these areas have to pay in terms of disasters related to anthropogenic climate change like floods, cyclones and droughts many of which are accelerated due to the carbon emissions of energy guzzling urban lifestyles across the world. It is here that social enterprises come into play which not only solve the problem of energy access but also try to make them sustainable for the coming generations.

The Need

 India being a developing country has equal priorities of economic growth and environmental consideration. While the threat of climate change impact is impending, the concern for poor who will be the most affected by the same looms large. The challenge is to drive a low carbon economy while meeting the aspirations of equitable development. With increasing energy demand spread, erratic energy supply and failure of traditional delivery mechanisms, access to quality energy remains an issue. Over 80,000 villages in India are not electrified and a lot many are partially electrified. This has resulted in stunted socio-economic growth in these villages which largely depend on kerosene for lighting and wood or animal dung for cooking in an extremely ill maintained environment that makes them susceptible to several respiratory diseases. Also the increasing usage of kerosene incurs heavy losses to the government in the form of subsidies and import dependence. This underscores the need for renewable energy in the Indian energy fabric as a clean and decentralised resource.

While large-scale projects for electricity generation and oil production based on renewable energy provide hope for a sustainable future, the imminent energy needs of India need to be addressed with innovative solutions in the grass roots. Also, the mounting global pressure to enforce low carbon growth even in developing countries necessitates quicker interventions. It is in this regard the rural renewable energy solutions gain prominence in India.

Problems to energy access in households

Consider the problem of access to energy in a rural household. The requirements are mainly for cooking, heating or cooling and lighting and more recently the need to power mobile phone devices. Lack of access to the National grid is a problem but not necessarily a barrier for these requirements as usage of distributed solar energy can meet the individual requirements of the household. Also the rural places typically inhabit land adjacent to river bodies and any rise in the water level linked to climate change or pollution of ground water with atmospheric contamination due to thermal power plants can have adverse effects on the community. So a solution has to be inclusive of all these problems.

 Solutions at the household level

Social enterprises, both for-profit and non-profit based in India have demonstrated remarkable prospects of minimising the need for further national grid extension to non-electrified areas, avoiding dependence on kerosene for lighting needs or reducing the dependence on dwindling forest resources for heating needs (cooking, room heating). The below organisations primarily use solar as a solution to solve these problems.

Barefoot - Harnessing solar through community (Source: Barefoot website)

It was the Barefoot college which initiated the trend through supply and maintenance of solar cookers and solar concentrators by empowering rural women in Rajasthan. Today, Solar Home-lighting Systems (SHS) and street lights using Photovoltaic (PV) conversion technologies are being widely disseminated by social enterprises like Selco, TERI’s LaBL, Onergy , Thrive etc.
While Selco is rooted in rural Karnataka and Gujarat, TERI’s LaBL is spread across different states. Onergy caters to the rural communities in West Bengal and Thrive functions in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Maharasthra. Simpa networks provides metering systems for pay per use solar energy using mobile phones enabling people to progressively purchase renewable energy
solutions for their homes and small businesses.

It is known that, dependence on polluting fuels like fuelwood for meeting heating requirements using inefficient traditional cookstoves produces higher GHG emissions. SKG Sangha has been encouraging biogas, clean stoves and vermicomposting in villages of Karnataka. There are organizations like Grass Roots Action for Social Participation (GRASP) which supply fuel
efficient cookstoves to rural households. Apart from these many of the solar power organisations offer different products to make cooking more energy efficient and effective for the households.

Solutions to energy access at community levels

Moving up from the individual energy requirements to village level or community requirements for processes like drawing water from wells, farming and street lighting, the problem of generating power and managing it goes beyond the realm of individual household solutions. Considering the lack of connectivity to national grids and the problems associated with setting up a conventional power station, alternative energy generated from locally available resources make sense. It is here that the agrarian nature of Indian economy is being utilised by some organisations to generate energy out of waste.

Gasifier - Husk Power Systems (Source: Husk Power Website)

The Indian agrarian economy provides sufficient agricultural and animal residues as inputs for biogas generation (heating needs) as well as biomass gasification (power generation). Bihar, one of the least electrified states in India is expected to have biomass based power generation potential of over 200 MW . Husk Power Systems (HPS) and DESI (Decentralized Energy Systems
India) Power capitalised on the abundant rice husk available in rural Bihar as a fuel source for power generation in village clusters as well as local industries. HPS uses standard fixed bed down draft type gasifier technology while DESI Power has installed their 50- 150 kW decentralised gasifier units in Bihar. Avani runs biomass gasifiers based on environmentally harmful pine needle litter available in the Himalayan ecosystem of Uttarakhand. Biomass gasifier technology developed by Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies based in Gujarat runs on wood waste, agro residues, rice husk and even poultry litter. As a pioneering effort
of the enterprise, the Gosaba Island in Sunderbans was electrified by a biomass power plant constructed with the support of government nodal renewable energy agency of West Bengal.

Telecom towers which have mushroomed even in rural parts of the country majorly run on polluting diesel generators. DESI Power has addressed this sector through solar-biomass hybrid decentralized power systems.

..and how they sustain their business with replicable models

All the organizations described above work towards energy inclusion of the rural poor and not only provide access to electricity but also help create jobs and provide microfinance or small loans to cover the cost of energy production. Non-profits like Barefoot College, TERI’s LaBL, Avani, SKG Sangha etc rely on initial grants and maintain a self sustainable revenue system without any profit motive. For example, Barefoot College trains semi-literate rural women as solar engineers who install and service solar cookers. The revenue hence generated forms the income base for these technicians. TERI’s LaBL facilitates local entrepreneurs to earn by renting and recharge of solar lanterns at solar charging stations to consumers dependant on kerosene and paraffin lamps. Avani relies on donor subsidies for supplying SHS to rural mountain areas of Uttarakhand and the profits are deposited in a central village fund. The revenue from the sale of electricity generated by pine needle based gasifiers are given to pine needle collectors. SKG Sangha is 80% financed through carbon credits earned through low carbon projects like biogas plants. The rest is supported by grants as well as beneficiary contributions. Then again, there are non-profits like Thrive which run for-profit companies for  technology development.

Scientific communications reveal the increasing intensity of tropical cyclones with anthropogenic global warming notably in the North Indian Ocean. This will have disastrous impact on the coastal regions of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, etc. which are prone to severity of cyclones [1]. Due to its geographical location, such incidents in Laxmikantapur could be ruinous to its limited livelihood options such as agriculture. This also poses threat to its socioeconomic stability and might trigger mass movement of climate refugees to safer interiors. In a country where more than 60% of its population lives in rural areas, Laxmikantapur is exemplary of poverty, lack of basic infrastructure like electricity as well as vulnerability to perils of climate change.

The Government of India which is largely dependent on coal based electricity has set a target to power the entire country by 2012, although over 80,000 villages are yet to be electrified. Further fossil fuel based generation would aggravate the global climatic changes and rural electrification demands a decentralized approach. Like in many other un-electrified villages, people in Laxmikantapur depend on kerosene for their lighting requirements. As the dusk breaks, women continue their cooking in the dim light of kerosene lamps and children struggle to read. Shops run on kerosene lights and local enterprises that aspire to work in the night, find it hard, but are forced to rely on this polluting and hazardous light source.

Jhuma Jalan, a homemaker, cooks in a small thatched hut poorly lit by a kerosene lamp.

She grieves, “Our kids study under this lamp in the evenings. But when the rains extinguish the light and hurt their eyes, they can’t study”. The sulphur and nitrogen based emissions from burning of kerosene also deteriorate their health. This is one of the major issues in un-electrified rural Indian homes.

Kapilananda Mondal, is the founder of Vivekananda Sevakendra Sishu Uddyan (VSSU) [2] an organization working on micro-enterprise development in Laxmikantapur. He says, “Even the poorest of people (in the village) spend Rs.100-150 (USD 2-3) a month on kerosene and a little better off family spends Rs.300-400”. The incidents of hoarding and black marketing of public distribution kerosene are also prevalent in the village as in other parts of the country.

Social enterprises have embarked on clean and viable renewable energy based solutions to lighten rural India. Onergy, a for-profit enterprise based in Laxmikantapur, has disseminated small-scale solutions like solar powered LED lamps, cell phone chargers, etc. in communities with the mature guidance of established enterprises in the domain and partnerships with donor organizations who also help subsidize the products to make it affordable for the masses.

The founders of the enterprise realized the need for small-scale solar solutions in Laxmikantapur and surrounding villages disconnected from the central electricity grid. They also successfully demonstrated it as a viable business model to sustain the enterprise as well as train local entrepreneurs to reach out to other individuals. The experiences and maturity of already functional local organizations like VSSU are capitalized to take the solutions forward. They are also collaborating with Milaap, an online microlending social enterprise in order to ensure better affordability through low cost loans [3].

The enterprise has three Shakti Kendras (Energy Centers) which coordinate the assembling, distribution and service of small solar devices.

Saifulla Baidla, one of the inhabitants of the village was facing the brunt of unreliable weather patterns on his crops. His search for alternative livelihood ended when he joined Onergy as a distributor having supplemented his income while also providing clean, safe, and affordable solar lights to his friends and neighbours.

Similar is the case of Pradip who would have migrated to the city for employment if not for the opportunity to work as a technician in Onergy. He is excited over the possibility of a leveraged income source at the proximity of his family away from the bustles of the city.

Shantana was a housewife, a mother who mostly attended to the family and barely stepped out for work due to minimal opportunities. Her life changed when she received training on cook stove construction from Onergy. Today, she works as a consultant in the village, helping people install safer, cleaner, efficient stoves in their houses. Such instances of local employment generation promote concurrent societal upliftment.

Yousuf Molla purchased a 40 watt solar home lighting system and is able to run his bakery for 4 additional hours. Also, the women at his home are able to engage in embroidery work at night. It is interesting to observe how a small solar energy device acts as a bridge within the family.

A local artisan woman who had no spare time during the daylight hours for her embroidery work due to heavy agricultural work, adopted LED based solar system from Onergy. Earlier she used to depend on kerosene lamps in the night and weep over the burnt intricate embroidery work due to negligence and spillage.  Today, delightedly she says, “Now that we use solar instead of kerosene, we can see better and work for longer hours in the night”. She is able to generate extra income in the safe solar light after her work in farm.

Another woman in the village, Kakoli giri, doubled her family income from making paper bags under the solar light. Her kids are able to study at night and she also saves Rs. 240 per month on kerosene. Using the solar cell phone charger, she can save Rs. 120 per month which otherwise would have been spent on charging stations in the locality.

Sulekha Mondol, a shop owner is elated over the boom in her earnings from Rs. 300-400 to Rs. 600-700 per day ever since she is using a solar powered lamp. She laments, “earlier when I used kerosene for illumination in the shop, I required about 500 ml every day, that comes to Rs. 15 per day”. In fact, she used to spend over Rs. 450 on kerosene for an entire month. The solar lamps have also helped keep the kerosene black market and unscrupulous distributors at bay.

The direct impact of solar energy based solutions is quite evident from the real life examples of Laxmikantapur. Each solar lantern displaces at the least 500 liters of kerosene and avoids nearly 1.5 tonnes of CO₂ emission in 10 years lifetime [4]. Hence, the avoided environmental impact of promoting such technologies on large scale is a major step towards climate change mitigation. The social enterprises like Onergy working in rural energy sector provide immense motivation to replicate small solar solutions in other rural setups of the country as well as communities world over.

While it must be underscored that there is no unique model which is successfully replicable, the learning from dissemination of renewable technologies should propel innovative thinking in this direction. Such an attempt must take the factors of local energy demand, acceptance, sociopolitical framework etc. into consideration. While environmental degradation caused during industrial revolution cannot be undone, it is possible to explore climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions for a new world order- it after all being a matter of survival!

References to explore further:

1. An observational evidence of climate change during global warming era, C.V. Naidu, K. Durgalakshmi,G.Ch. Satyanarayana, L. Malleswara Rao, S.S.V.S. Ramakrishna,Jaddu Rama Mohan, K. Naga Ratna, Global and Planetary Change, 2011

2. “Innovative approaches to delivering microfinance services: The case of VSSU, West Bengal”,http://www.microsave.org/sites/default/files/Innovative_Approaches_to_Delivering_Microfinance_Services_West_Bengal.pdf

3. “Microfinance help bring solar lights to rural West Bengal”, http://www.microfinancefocus.com/microfinance-help-bring-solar-lights-rural-west-bengal

4. Lighting a billion lanterns, TERI, http://labl.teriin.org/

In a word, they aren’t. The flood and its survivors are being given almost no attention by the UN and delegates at the conference, and the people have received next to no assistance from the municipal government.

Now, in the final hours of negotiations, as COP17 draws to a close, it is unlikely that any sort of climate treaty will be agreed upon that meets the needs of the most impacted. In addition, it remains to be seen whether the Green Climate Fund, the singular high hope of many most impacted countries in desperate need of funding for adaptation measures, will be approved and launched.

Despite this incredible disappointment, many youth, NGO’s, and members of civil society are dedicated to offering what relief they can – and have launched a campaign facilitated through 350.org, with all funds going directly to the KwaMashu community. They hope to show the victims of the flash floods that despite the appearance of being ignored, there are people at these negotiations who truly understand that for many, climate change means survival or death.

This is also, as it happens, a unique opportunity to shine a light on developed countries’ inaction on pledging tangible resources for immediate adaptation, and that the United States and Saudi Arabia are holding up the one measure with potential to truly help peoples most impacted the world over (The Green Climate Fund).

As the global climate continues to warm, sudden, heavy downpours are expected to increase across South Africa, adding to the growing global tally of climate casualties. This isn’t the first not-so-funny coincidence of a climate-related “natural” disaster striking during a climate conference, and it certainly won’t be the last.

#Occupy Cop 17 General Assembly – Images by Robert van Waarden

I will tell you of Goblins, elves, fairies, giants and gnomes just like you all were told as you grew up. Most of you always ended in a toothy (or not so toothy) grin, or with a drool of saliva on your pillow. I hope this story of one Pablo Solon leaves you grinning but there is one catch to this story.

You must perceive the characters like a seven year old. There is Pablo, a mice turned to horse, the polluters the evil step mother and sisters, the least developed countries (LDC’s) and the AOSIS are the Cinderellas. We really want to see them go to the ball and hopefully at one time in future dance with her prince (which represent a better deal at the end of COP 17 talks).

Say you were mandated with voicing the opinions and fears of a small nation, say Bolivia, that doesn’t hold as much ground when it comes to world super powers like the USA, European countries, Canada, China and Australia. This was the job for Pablo Solon who was the UN ambassador for UNFCCC negotiations for the last two and a half years.

At COP 15 in Copenhagen, Pablo arose out of the monotony of the negotiations when he so passionately disapproved of the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord is a legally non-binding agreement that suggests that the US cut emissions by only 17% starting 1990. What does this actually mean? The US is one of the biggest emitters of fossil fuels. A 17% decrease in emissions would do almost nothing to combat global climate chaos. Naturally the Bolivian ambassador objected to The Accord. Following the objection, the USA cut aid to Bolivia by $3 million.

In Mexico, Ambassador Pablo vehemently opposed the Cancun Agreement. In these negotiations on the last Friday, a document was brought in and the negotiators were given two hours to read it through. After the two hours, negotiators were set to adopt this document for the next ten years, until Pablo took a stand. He pointed out loopholes in the Cancun Accord to allow for carbon trading and schemes such as REDD that reduce the responsibilities of developed countries. Pablo said, ‘We were accused of being obstructionist, obstinate and unrealistic. But we feel an enormous obligation to set aside diplomacy and tell the truth.’ After his term was over this April, he still shows up in Durban, South Africa for the COP17 negotiations and he joins the people outside at the General Assembly.

When asked why he is here, Pablo says, ‘the Cancun Agreement was a bad deal, but here we can have an agreement that can be even worse than that. Why? Because the level of reduction of the carbon emissions is still going to cause an increase of the world temperature by 4 degrees Celsius and that means 9 degrees Celsius for Africa. They are going to cook Africa.’

Is there any hope for Cinderella to dance at COP 17? The people are our hope according to Pablo. The only way to change the course of the talks could be by social pressure not only here in South Africa but all over the world. The population that makes up less than 1% should not define the conditions under which the other 99% of the population lives.

‘For 350,000 people to die from climate change associated disasters is an ecocide and everyone has a role to play in mitigating this. The scenarios are three. The good being the number of emission reduction increases by the biggest polluters. The bad, the negotiations are extended for one year as the governments refuse to lock the Cancun Agreement. And the ugly is that they lock down the Cancun Agreement and temperatures continue to rise at a rate of 4 degrees per year, and more than double that for Africa.’

As Canada pulls out of Kyoto Protocol, it is clear that economic power is valued over ecological power. The pressure is on. As we venture further into this climate catastrophe experiment, we must amplify voices of those most impacted by climate change and those who fight for climate justice. Bring their experience straight to the negotiators and get dirty corporations out of the UN process.

In the next two weeks, the evil step mothers and step sisters must work through their issues, or at least try to. The mice of the world must grow up and if they turn to horses, they become drivers of change and help Cinderella get to the ball. Hopefully one day soon, Cinderella will dance with her prince.

A farmer from Chiapas watches evening fall under the main tent at La Via Campesina. Participants slept on mats under a shared canopy, or pitched tents in small groups

A Bolivian woman marches in Tuesday’s demonstration across downtown Cancún, joining a thousand others who took buses to approach the negotiations

Groups from Mexico, Bolivia and around the world played most nights at La Via Campesina to crowds of enthusiastic dancers. Throughout the day panels were held to discuss the terms of REDD+ and visions for an environmentally conscious future

La Via Campesina provided transportation, food and sleeping space for free, in an attempt to make the event as accessible as possible

A woman from Chiapas listens to a lecture the first day of La Via Campesina. Many participants traveled in a caravan leaving for Mexico City, three days’ drive to Cancún

Farmers relax the morning before Tuesday’s demonstration

Dancing before dinner

La Via Campesina met at a central Cancún arena, open to the public for lectures and an artisan’s market

Demonstrators prepare for the first day’s march through the streets of downtown Cancún

The largest demonstration, held on Tuesday, drew some 1,000-1,500 participants. Starting in downtown Cancún and ending at the perimeter of the official UN negotiations, the manifestation articulated a call for the rights of local food producers, non-genetically engineered corn and other crops, and rebutted the UN’s REDD+ policy

REDD+, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, purports to manage forest resources in developing countries, aiming to curb the emissions produced in harvesting lumber and other modes of resource exploitation. The UN policy provides incentives to countries that lower emission levels or preserve tracts of rainforest

Critics of REDD+ contend that the policy does not address the root cause of excessive carbon admissions by taking no direct action against deforestation. Moreover, environmental and especially indigenous groups claim the UN policy encourages centralizing forests in the hands of corporations in logging and other resource exploitation. Under the system, groups argue, a private corporation possesses the infrastructure capable of pursuing incentives whereas small landowners often face difficulties in communicating with international bodies

International activists have protested the way in which REDD+ is perceived to wrest control of forests from indigenous groups, seizing upon previously autonomous lands and placing them under surveillance of an international body. The primary issue, say indigenous groups, is that their land management has a far better track record than corporate and international bodies have with regard to forest exploitation and management

International and local activists voiced support for indigenous group’s opposition to REDD+

Indigenous Bolivians rest after marching several kilometers to a barricade preventing Tuesday’s demonstration from accessing the Moon Palace, where the COP-16 negotiations were held

An activist speaks with a riot policeman

Activists hoisted a large, inflatable silver hammer over the police barrier. The demonstration was prevented from marching within a kilometer of the climate negotiations, and the small confrontation ended peacefully

Farmers join a spontaneous demonstration Monday night against REDD+ and the perceived manipulation of COP-16 by developed, Annex 1 countries

A farmer unveils a banner in preparation for a demonstration through downtown Cancún

Sunday’s demonstration drew several hundred farmers and activists, inaugurating six days at La Via Campesina

Dusk over La Via Campesina’s rendezvous

• Sean P. Smith is a documentary photographer currently based in Boston, USA. He can be reached at sean.philip.smith@gmail.com