NGO Seeks More Access To Alternative Energy Service

The International Centre
for Energy, Environment & Development (ICEED), an NGO, says one of its objectives is to expand access to sustainable and alternative energy services needed by poor Nigerians
The Executive Director of the organisation,  Mr Ewah Eleri, said this in an interview with newsmen Abuja recently.
Eleri said that ICEED was also engaged in activities designed to protect the poor from the impacts of climate change.
According to him, sustainable and alternative energy services such as clean stoves and clean energy saves lives, money, time and forests.
The executive director added that ICEED was committed to bringing the benefits of clean cooking to millions of Nigerian homes.
He explained that the clean stove was designed to optimise fuel-efficiency and reduce toxic emissions when cooking meals.
He said that the clean stove was one intervention that addressed almost all of the UN Millennium Development Goals.
“For half of the world’s population, a clean cook stove means one less day of struggling to find enough wood to survive.
“ It means increased safety, improved livelihoods, empowerment of women and protection of the environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.’’
He noted that despite the fact that the poor had contributed the least to global warming, they always suffered the most.
“Over 95,000 Nigerians, mostly women and children die every year from smoke coming from the use of firewood.
“ A woman who cooks three times a day with firewood, inhales an equivalent amount of smoke from two packets of cigarettes daily.
“For the urban poor, the cost of wood for cooking is increasing; so also kerosene is expensive and scarce while rural people spend more time collecting wood than before,’’ Eleri said.