Solar-water heaters have multiple benefits for poor households in South Africa (Source: Nic Bothma, CDM Project 0079: Kuyasa low-cost urban housing energy upgrade project, Khayelitsha, South Africa)
A major challenge for developing countries is to ensure people gain access to energy without massive rises in C02 emissions.
It’s a difficult balance, and one that is not always possible to achieve.
Planners in Cosmos City – near Johannesburg – have launched a solar water heating project for 700 households.
A year on from the introduction of the project, the heaters are not only providing houses with warm water, but also reduce the households electricity bill as families no longer have to boil water for washing a cooking.
In the sixteenth in the series of UNFCCC CDM Radio Club reports RTCC is hosting, Zeenat Abdool, a radio journalist in South Africa looks at how projects like this could be registered under the CDM to earn tradable carbon credits.
The radio club aims to spread the word about the CDM in Africa and extend the benefits of the mechanism to communities that have not yet benefited from the scheme. The CDM is an official process for carbon reductions under the UNFCCC.