What are good charities for donating to electrification and clean energy in developing countries? What are current innovations in the field?
Just one example, there is evidence that clean cooking stoves can reduce air pollution in the home and uplift status of women (who travel long distances for several hours, more exposed to dehydration and sexual violence).
See my comment about clean cookstoves here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cz85mufYwiiukpowD/clean-cookstoves-may-be-competitive-with-givewell?commentId=C9j4TXromRcFbJJT7
If you are interested in clean cookstoves in particular, review the content from: https://cleancooking.org/
Nice one. Donor subsidised (slightly) cleaner cookstoves have taken over in Northern Uganda here over the last 2-3 years which is a fantastic achievement. This really convinces me that If people really like the stoves and the price is right, these can quickly reduce emissions and lung disease. Obviously still using charcoal with all associated issues, but still a nice step in the right direction.
Clean Air Task Force is probably the most well regarded organization doing this kind of work.
For more information on them, I really like their Giving What We Can page and a recent interview
Thanks for the video Lorenzo.
I was really unconvinced by this interview . A key feature of almost all high impact EA backed interventions is that they do one thing, do it well and do it at scale. This org seemed like they are looking at a whole range of vague non-concrete interventions which concerns me. Maybe they are at an early stage in Africa and haven’t narrowed down yet?
I’m not saying these concepts are bad, but there were a whole lot of buzzwords, generalisations and NGO speak which sounds nice but having worked with many useless NGOs are big red flags when I hear them.
“Engaging stakeholders”
“Locally appropriate solutions”
“Innovation hubs”
Lack of specific interventions, I didn’t hear one specific example of a measurable change they are looking for or outcome that the are trying to achieve in a specific country.
I feel like she also focus’s a lot on a strawman of foreign countries coming in and trying to stop or slow countries’ development in order to decarbonise. I don’t know for sure but I really doubt that is a huge problem, but it sounds nice to talk about and focus on. She’s right that donors come in and decided what renewables the are putting in, but not telling countries to stop producing dirty power.
I’m very happy to be rebutted on this, and perhaps even someone from the org can shed more light on more specific things this org is actually doing in Africa.
CATF’s director did a podcast interview where he went into much more detail on what CATF does. My impression is that CATF has a decades-long history of US policy advocacy, and everything else they do is part of a recent expansion, including the energy access work.
Thanks that makes sense! To be clear my criticism was specifically about what was said in this video about CATF AFrica, and not about CATF in general.
There are two orgs that recommend effective charities for climate change in general:
Founders Pledge (Climate Change Fund)
Giving Green
Founders Pledge focuses on the “triple challenge” of climate change, air pollution, and energy poverty. If you’re interested in donating to address both climate change and energy poverty, I recommend giving to the FP Climate Change Fund or FP’s recommended climate charities. This includes CATF, which Karthik recommended, but also other organizations like TerraPraxis and Future Cleantech Architects.