The CEES World Energy Justice Project

Our Mission: Energy Justice seeks to identify and respond to the problems of energy access faced by nearly one third of the world’s population currently relying on biomass-based fire to meet all their energy needs, with injurious consequences. Only by bringing together information and decision-makers from a broad range of disciplines – politics, engineering, public health, law, business, economics, and the sciences – can we find viable options to create a world of Energy Justice.

CEES Energy Justice Project Details: The Center for Energy and Environmental Security (CEES) at Colorado Law has launched a critical new initiative: The World Energy Justice Project (WEJP). WEJP’s mission is to mainstream safe, clean, and efficient energy for the world’s Energy Oppressed Poor (EOP), the two and a half billion people living on less than $1-2 a day who have no access to modern energy services.

The EOP rely primarily on biomass – such as animal dung, waste, crop residues, and rotted wood, as well as raw coal – as their primary sources of fuel for cooking, heating, and illumination. These fuel sources create black soot (also called black carbon) when burned. This indoor air pollution results in nearly one million and a half premature deaths each year, as well as millions more incidents of morbidity, predominantly among women and children. Black soot is also the second most significant contributor to global warming. WEJP aims to address both these problems by fostering, developing, and coordinating interdisciplinary research, development, and deployment of appropriate sustainable energy technologies (ASETs).

ASETs consist of low-cost, clean, non-hydrocarbon energy sources from mundane technologies, adapted to the culture of the users, to supply the unmet needs of the EOP. For example, cleaner burning cook-stoves and cooking fuels can alleviate indoor air pollution from black soot while also reducing global warming. Many other mundane technologies already exist to promote better agriculture and encourage women, now freed from illness and hours of fuel gathering, to start small local businesses.

CEES is seeking funding for three aspects of WEJP:

Stage 1:

  • Appropriate Sustainable Energy Technology (ASET) Information Repository – WEJP will create a collaborative online information database that contains the best examples of ASETs and facilitates information sharing and worldwide development and dissemination of ASETs based on best engineering and management practices.
  • Energy Justice Law and Policy – WEJP will draft a series of international and national policy papers addressing, for example, the legal challenges to energy justice presented by the existing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as other rules and policies hindering sustainable development.

Stage 2:

  • Pilot Demonstration Projects – In close collaboration with in-country partners and women-run NGOs, WEJP will establish pilot demonstration projects for best-practice ASETs.

Stage 3:

  • Living Communities in Action – In partnership with aid and other development programs, such as those run by the U.S. Department of Energy, USAID, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Global Village Energy Partnership, WEJP will expand pilot projects into full-scale integrated energy enterprises in villages and towns in selected countries.