All the episodes are great, but I was particularly interested in episode seven, which explores the innovative work of the organization Bush Proof, a company that uses bottom of the pyramid marketing to provide sustainable, eco-friendly products to the world’s poor. Watch the video below, then head on over to Beyond Good Intentions to view the rest.

A new $500-billion project known as Desertec will harness the power of the sun in North Africa’s Maghreb desert to produce power for much of Europe.  The project is based on solar thermal technology, as opposed to photovoltaic cells.   Essentially hundreds of thousands of mirrors will be place in the desert to heat water, generate steam, and drive turbines in a local power plant.  The electricity will then be transported via high-voltage transmission lines to markets in Europe.

There are so many variables for disaster within this project, it’s hard to know where to begin. The Maghrab desert spans North Africa’s bastion of security, including Algeria, Mali, Niger, Libya and Mauritania.   Conservative critics argue that “If this project is built, Europe will shortly become dependent on it, and the Islamic world will have a second, and much tighter, noose to add to the oil one.”  While the project could provide stability for the region by providing income, jobs and the creation of a new industry, it also has a certain neo-colonial flavor, where European investment is for the benefit of Europe at the detriment of Africa.

Moreover, the mere notion of transporting electricity such distances when it can be produced cheaper at home seems, well, senseless.  The foundation of the environmental movement lies in regional solutions.  Perhaps that doesn’t bode well for development initiatives overseas, but perhaps local development initiatives are more successful anyway.  This plan sounds about as stable as the geo-engineering research that suggests we should fight global warming by shooting sulfur disks into the atmosphere (everyone loves a good bath in acid rain, right?)

But perhaps there’s something more at play here.  Not only will Desertic provide up to 15 percent of Europe’s power, it will also provide a place to claim all those lovely CDM carbon credits required for Europe to fulfill it’s Kyoto commitments. Two birds, one stone. Now that’s innovation.

Pressure on rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions could mean government-branded sacks of food aid could take a back seat to things like more efficient wood-burning cooking stoves for rural Mexicans.

Of course that’s not really true. Green aid will more likely take the form of carbon offsets.  Developed nations will be able to ‘write off’ the high levels of CO2 they produce by providing aid for green development initiatives overseas.   Many western governments (though not Canada) view this as a win-win situation: They can meet both their international aid and environmental commitments in one fell swoop, without making any actual cuts to their carbon emission.  According to Anthony Cary, Britain’s high commissioner to Canada:

“That’s a sensible way to go because economics suggest that you should drive investment to where you can get the biggest gains in terms of the atmosphere, and that’s often going to be in developing countries.”

Developing countries are exempt from setting concrete target emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The argument follows that developed nations are carbon emitters, where as developing nations aren’t, and forcing target emissions could potentially curb their development goals.  “Green aid” provides the solution, tying rich and poor nations to a global framework for reducing CO2 emissions.

Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM’s) are the manifestation of green aid at work.  CDM’s allow developed nations to invest in projects in developing nations that reduce emissions without making costly cuts to their own CO2 output.  They are traded online, at the CDM Bazaar. Under this framework, I continue to live in a smoggy mess, while the aforementioned Mexican enjoys a high efficiency wood stove he didn’t ask for and maybe doesn’t want.  And anyway, as the BBC reports, between 20% and 60% of CDM projects do not save any additional CO2.

Perhaps Mr. Cary is right about “driving investment to where you can get the biggest gains,” but I wonder if there’s more at stake than economic gains. The earth doesn’t hedge it’s bets the same way the market does, and at the end of the day one ton of carbon is still one ton of carbon. Whether it come from the United States or Uruguay makes little difference.