Last month, we took an in-depth look at the Paris Agreement and some of the challenges and successes of this global climate treaty. This month, we're diving into a handful of communities from around the world to see some tangible ways that others are implementing the emission reduction goals they committed to in the Paris Agreement.

We hope you enjoy learning from these communities and, despite the enormity of the challenges that climate change poses for our planet, we hope you walk away feeling uplifted and inspired knowing we are not alone in our efforts.

In rural Belize, many villages do not have access to electricity as their remote location makes it difficult, if not impossible, to connect to the national electricity grid. This creates a lack of access to basic health services and a great economic disadvantage for those villages.

Enter Florentina Choco, Miriam Choc and Cristina Choc, three Mayan women who have been trained through an international technological program to bring solar energy to these remote villages. Their training at the Barefoot College in India empowered them to build and to repair small household solar energy systems.¹

Due to their efforts, they have kept an estimated 6.5 tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. More importantly, there are innumerable social benefits of bringing energy to these villages. Belize's Small Grants Program national coordinator Leonel Requena puts it this way: “These women are shattering the glass ceiling! They have installed solar systems to four indigenous communities impacting over 1000 residents.” ²

In one of these villages, Florentina, Miriam, and Cristina helped power 150 homes and a school that serves 30 children. Phones can be charged, solar water pumps can provide potable water, children can study after hours, the entire way of life in these villages is improved while still maintaining cultural autonomy and authenticity.

With Belize committing to a one hundred percent renewable energy future for these villages by 2030³, the technical knowledge that these women can provide for their communities is an invaluable step toward a sustainable future.

The indigenous tribes in the Venezuelan Amazon have sustainably lived in and managed the rainforest for tens of thousands of years. They know how to live in harmony with the land. Yet there is an increasing break with traditional knowledge as tribes are displaced and younger generations move to urban areas.

The project Amazonas Originaria trains indigenous families in sustainable forest cultivation that combines traditional knowledge with sustainable crop production. Not only are they re-planting devastated areas of the Amazon, they are simultaneously providing a livelihood for themselves by using crops to make various products from chocolate to baskets.⁴

National Small Grants Program coordinator Alexis Bermudez says, “This project, in particular, is interesting and inspiring, as it is led by women… it supports the fight against climate change, since its purpose is to conserve the Amazon Forest as the main carbon sink in southern Venezuela, working hand in hand with native communities, valuing their traditions and protecting their ancestral habitat.”⁵

Community trainings are such a simple way to make an incredible impact. Empowering ordinary residents to affect change for themselves has a ripple effect that creates authentic solutions since they're born from within the community.

Here is a short video that further explains this project and its impacts.

About 70 million people living in Pakistan do not have access to electricity; 3 million of those people do not have electricity because it is simply impossible to connect to the grid.

That is where small-scale hydropower projects come in. Feeding off of mountain streams, the energy generated from small hydroelectric power plants goes into a micro grid that sustains several remote villages. This project is part of the Smart Village Initiative that provides assistance in education, commerce, and health. Much like the concept of a "smart city", the idea is to provide villages access to information technology systems that would improve, not replace, their way of life.

Along with the hydroelectric projects comes free technical training for youth so that communities can sustain the power plants.⁶ The impact of having power in these villages is immense, especially for women and children who would spend hours washing clothes by hand or were unable to study at night without a light.⁷

The Paris Agreement specifically states that developed nations will collaborate on solutions with leaders of developing nations by providing technical knowledge and trainings. These projects are great examples of just how important it is to have access to information and technology in developing nations. It's not that all countries of the world can't create solutions for themselves, it's having the privilege of technology and funding that are the true barriers and if those resources are shared, we are all better off.

Indonesia relies heavily upon coal for its energy. The country also happens to eat a lot of tofu. To make one kilogram of tofu, 33 liters of liquid waste is produced.⁸ Many tofu factories are small production facilities and are unregulated, so this wastewater is dumped directly into rivers.

In the village of Kailsari on the island of Java,150 tofu factories began an alternative approach to dealing with this wastewater: pumping it to a nearby biogas plant, where digesters create methane gas that is used to power homes. For distant villages where resources like wood and gas may arrive intermittently, generating their own source of power provides invaluable social and economic benefits.⁹

Just one tofu factory in the neighboring village of Sumedang provides power to about 56 households. There are 230 tofu factories in Sumedang alone.¹⁰ Beyond biogas, using the wastewater from tofu has cut down on water and air pollution in the village which also significantly impacts the way of life.

These small-scale projects have proven so successful in decreasing pollution and increasing the availability of renewable energy that they have the potential to help Indonesia on a large-scale transition away from coal power. Government officials estimate that "if this renewable energy project will roll out nationwide, over 56,000 tons of fossil fuels will be replaced by biogas every year."¹¹

Here is an inside look at how tofu makes biogas in Sumedang (biogas conversion begins at minute 4)

In Bangladesh, about a quarter of the rural population is without power. This is partly due to the remote locations of some of the islands in Bangladesh; it is simply impossible to connect to the larger energy grid.¹²

Through a collaboration with the World Bank and other organizations, solar power and the creation of micro energy grids are bridging this gap. Twenty million people in rural Bangladesh are beginning to have access to electricity. Businesses in towns are able to stay open after hours, children can study after working in fields, parents finish household chores at home. Solar pumps help famers improve crop yields by providing consistent irrigation. Renewable energy is providing rural communities the means to empower themselves and access resources that were previously out of reach.

The World bank has dedicated $1.3 billion during the last decade for off-grid programs. Most of these programs are in Sub Saharan Africa and South East Asia, where the world's largest concentration of people live without access to electricity.¹³

The rural town of Kamikatsu, located 370 miles from Tokyo, took up a noble cause when, in the year 2000, a new law forced them to change the way they disposed of trash.¹⁴ Up to that point, the town relied on two small incinerators to help manage waste. The town did not have the money to transport their waste to the nearest facility or to build new incinerators. So, they decided to produce less of it and recycle and repurpose what they could.

At first, some residents resisted the change saying that sorting through trash and washing plastic bags and bottles is not something they were keen to do. Akira Sakano, leader of Kamikatsu's non-profit Zero Waste Academy, says "You are always going to get people who are uncooperative in any community-level project".¹⁵ The organization decided to focus on the majority of the town that did support the effort and hope that the rest would follow suit.

After two decades, the town is recycling over 80 percent of its waste. They sort their recyclable items into 45 categories. A thrift store in town named "kuru kuru", which means "round and round", is home for items in good repair that residents can take for free. Several local businesses from breweries, to hotels, to restaurants embrace a circular ethic by using reclaimed materials, composting food waste, offering meals made with in-season produce, and reusing waste products like spent grain or misshapen vegetables.¹⁶

Kamikatsu's original goal was to be completely zero-waste by 2020. Though they still have some waste to manage that can't be recycled, reused, or composted (most of this is packaging), they are well on their way to achieve a new goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

Though Kamikatsu established itself as zero waste far before the signing of the Paris Agreement, the success that this mountain town has had in pivoting away from environmental degradation to being a model climate-friendly community shows that some solutions are not found by a groundbreaking discovery. They already exist and we are already doing them, they just need to be done on a bigger scale.

England

Ashton Hayes

The residents of Ashton Hayes, a countryside town of about 1,000 people, have been reducing their carbon footprint since 2006. Resident Garry Charnock was inspired by what he learned about climate change at a local festival, so he decided to call a town meeting. Half of the town showed up including leaders at the local elementary school. All were on board to reduce their collective carbon emissions and set the bold target to become the first carbon neutral community in England. And they went about reaching that target by a wide range of efforts.

Some residents were able to invest in renewable energy sources like solar power and geothermal to power their homes. Others simply pledged to throw on a sweater when it cold instead of turning up the heat. One household even bought a few cows to mow the lawn and got rid of their gas-powered mower.²⁰

These individual efforts led to broader support of community-scale efforts like installing solar panels at the school or using alternative modes of transportation. There were no large grants awarded in those early years; change was made as a result of grassroots efforts. And those changes added up-- in the first decade, the town cut their carbon emissions by 40%!²¹

As their website states "We started our journey in January 2006 and since then we have already cut our carbon dioxide emissions significantly-- by working together, sharing ideas, and through behavioral change." Making a difference doesn't need to be a result of some incredible discovery. It can be as ordinary as relying on your neighbor!

The launch of the Going Carbon Neutral Project in Ashton Hayes, 2006

Avonmouth

A fleet of trucks drive around Avonmouth powered by the materials they collect-- food waste! As in the states, the UK generates a significant amount of food waste, waste that ordinarily would have been bound for the landfill. Instead, it is converted to biogas at a power plant that uses anaerobic digestion to create the gas. This biogas in turn is used to power the electric charging stations at the power plant to plug in their "Bio-Bees" after a long day's work of collecting food waste. These trucks have been in service since 2017.²² The power plant produces enough biogas to power their facility and vehicles and supply about 7,000 households. The solids that are left over from the digestion process are used as fertilizer.²³

Using anaerobic digesters to produce gas is nothing new. Other countries in Europe have used food waste to produce energy. When food breaks down, it naturally gives off methane. What the power plants do is harness the methane and use it as a source of energy before it escapes into the atmosphere.

As one Bio-Bee driver puts it “Every year, an estimated 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere across the UK by food waste that is sent to landfill to rot, instead of being recycled. The Bio-Bees allow us to harvest the valuable energy and nutrients in food waste, and use it to power homes and vehicles in a more sustainable and ethical way.” 

Here is a look at how the food waste to biogas process works

Denmark is a country of about 6 million people and is known for having one of the most aggressive emissions reduction goals. The country passed a climate law to reduce its emissions by 70% of 1990 levels by 2030. Making such a huge shift in such a short amount of time has had some skeptics predicting economic fallout and social disruption yet the opposite has happened. The country has managed to increase economic productivity and decrease emissions, all the while gaining a reputation for being one of the happiest and healthiest societies.

Embracing renewable energy, green transportation, using a carbon tax, and shifting to biogas are the main strategies that Denmark's leaders employed to achieve significant reduction.²⁴ In some industries where emissions reductions are the most difficult (agriculture and transportation), representatives from each industry collaborated heavily with government officials through established climate partnerships. Mads Nipper, CEO of Danish energy company Orsted, writes, "We spent time on mobilizing representatives from the industries through online outreach, hackathons with industry experts, and in-depth sessions with industry spokespersons to establish a common language, understanding and a shared net-zero vision. This was a good route to move the net-zero ambition from a utopia to something doable and practical."²⁵

For such a small country with a relatively small carbon footprint, one might wonder why Denmark's citizens are so keen to lead the way in climate change action. Denmark's minister for climate, energy, and utilities Dan Jorgenson says, “If Denmark disappeared tomorrow, the carbon reduction might not even register...so why do we spend so much time and resources on transforming ourselves? Because we want to be a frontrunner; we want to show the world that you can have a decarbonized economy that is wealthy and provides its people with a high quality of life.”²⁶

Conclusion: The solutions are already here

"We have the skills! We have the people! We have the ideas! We CAN do it!!"

-Sarah Jo Lightner, during an impassioned conversation in the office

It is only too easy to feel overwhelmed, anxious, and bogged down by the enormity of the issue we're facing. Some say it's too late, some don't even know where to begin, others have lost faith in humanity altogether. Our sincerest hope in writing this enewsletter is that you feel the excitement and inspiration that we did in researching these communities. There is a genuine desire to do good and a willingness to embrace change by individuals, communities, and governments all over the world. You are not alone, and we are not alone. As the residents of any of these communities can tell you, the actions we take do matter, and we feel better when we are engaging with solutions; the quality of our lives can improve when we take action. And as this newsletter shows, it doesn't have to be some monumental act. It is often the seemingly "smaller" actions that are the pebbles that cause the landslide.

In the following months, we'll take an in-depth look on what our country is doing to combat climate change and how it all ties in to waste reduction. Thank you for reading!

Sources

1,3.Project Detail (undp.org)

2,5.Small solutions, big impacts: 5 community-based projects tackling climate change | UN News

3.The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer - United States Department of State

4.Project Detail (undp.org)

5.Small solutions, big impacts: 5 community-based projects tackling climate change | UN News

6.Pakistan’s Smart Village Initiative - A Digital Revolution | Zameen Blog

7.The “smart villages” of northern Pakistan | News | Eco-Business | Asia Pacific

8,10.Tofu Waste Smelly Runoff Turned Into Biogas Indonesia (businessinsider.com)

9,11.Village in Indonesia Has an Unlikely Energy Supply: Tofu | Nature World News

12.Solar power is changing lives in Bangladesh | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

13.Off-grid bringing power to millions (worldbank.org)

14,15.‘No-waste’ Japanese village is a peek into carbon-neutral future | Japan | The Guardian

16.Kamikatsu, Japan’s zero-waste town, has lessons for a sustainable future - Washington Post

17.Morocco: MENA’s rare climate change success story | Climate Crisis News | Al Jazeera

18.In Morocco, fisherwomen adopt new climate-resilient practices | UN Women – Headquarters

19.From Milan to Glasgow, young Moroccans commit to fighting climate change | UN News

20.How a Tiny British Town Is a Climate Change Leader (globalcitizen.org)

21.Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral - Background (squarespace.com)

22.Food waste-powered trucks reducing emissions around the West (actionnetzero.org)

23.Food waste | GENeco

24,25.How Denmark's industry cut emissions and boosted productivity | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

26.Why Denmark Wants to Be a ‘Frontrunner’ in the Fight Against Climate Change (yale.edu)

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