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UN / BLACK CARBON
STORY: UN / BLACK CARBON
TRT: 1.41
SOURCE: UNTV/ UNDP/ FAO/ UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 16 APRIL 2009, NEW YORK CITY/ FILE
FILE - FAO - 5 APRIL 2008, MANGOCHI, MALAWI
3. Wide shot, woman with wood bundles on head walking up dirt road
4. Wide shot, bundles of wood roadside
5. Wide shot, agricultural burn roadside
16 APRIL 2009, NEW YORK CITY/ FILE
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team:
“While carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for, of the order of a hundred years or more, black carbon comes out of the atmosphere in a few days, possibly a few weeks. So, clearly, it’s a fast way to get rid of possibly a substantial problem and indeed if some of it comes from traditional cooking, then the replacement of cooking facilities with more modern fuel efficient stoves would definitely help”
FILE – UNHCR - 23 FEBRUARY 2009, GIRDASEN CAMP LOCATED IN NORTHERN IRAQ
7. Various shots, women making bread at an outdoor oven
8. Med shot, children eating bread
16 APRIL 2009, NEW YORK CITY/ FILE
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team:
“Developed countries also have had a much bigger black carbon emission in the past, but they reduced it using filters, better filters and better fuels, but there are still emissions of black carbon in the developed countries and also in the industrialized parts of developing countries, so there is a lot one can do in improving fuel efficiency, in using better and cleaner fuels such as electricity or moving from coal to gas, things like that”
FILE – UNDP – RECENT, SIMA VILLAGE, MUHELI, COMOROS ISLAND
10. Various shots, woman making clay stoves
11. Various shots, stoves
12. Various shots, clay stove maker, cooking on stove
13. Various of woman cooking and feeding wood to stove
Recent scientific reports indicate that black carbon is the second largest contributor to global warming, after carbon dioxide, much of it possibly coming from third world traditional cooking stoves pouring soot into the atmosphere.
The Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team Director, Janos Pasztor, told UNifeed that if this is true, it could present a relatively quick and economic way to reduce the effects of global warming.
He noted that while carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere for over a century, “black carbon comes out of the atmosphere in a few days”, and that if indeed “some of it comes from traditional cooking, then the replacement of cooking facilities with more modern fuel efficient stoves would definitely help”
Black carbon is a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust. It contributes to global warming by absorbing heat in the atmosphere and by reducing the ability to reflect sunlight.
Pasztor said that developed countries, which “had a much bigger black carbon emission in the past”, have reduced it by using “better filters and better fuels”. He added that there is still much that can be done, both in the developed countries “and also in the industrialized parts of developing countries”.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has helped set up a women's group in the Islands of Comoros, giving them funding and technical assistance, dedicated to building clay stoves that burn less wood. These stoves, mixed with black volcanic earth, require approximately 30 percent less wood than other, less efficient stoves.
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