Clinton Foundation Archives - COTAP.org - Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty

Archive for the ‘Clinton Foundation’ Category

COTAP’s Summer 2016 Newsletter

August 10th, 2016

Nicaragua Project Visit and Trip Report

From May 31 to June 3, COTAP visited our partner Taking Root’s CommuniTree project in Somoto and Limay Nicaragua. Check out the full trip report and picture gallery on the COTAP blog.

Additional Nicaragua Updates

By mid-June, the project announced it had already planted 500,000 trees… this season!
Also in June, the project announced that it had successfully completed its first third-party verification by the Rainforest Alliance. You can read their full verification report here.
Read Taking Root’s recent blog posts about their charcoal pilot and how reforestation projects help farmers adapt to climate change.
Our prior newsletter failed to mention (Taking Root Executive Director) Kahlil Baker’s excellent Op-Ed in the Vancouver Sun about Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change.
In addition to COTAP’s photos in our trip report, CommuniTree also released two 2016 planting season photo sets in April and July.
Last but not least, you can offset your CO2 emissions through this project here.

Malawi Updates

COTAP partner the Clinton Development Initiative announced that the Trees of Hope project had paid 875 farmers more than $100,000 from the sale of carbon certificates. Of those, 376 were paid for the first time and formally opened bank accounts with First Malawi Bank.
The Clinton Foundation published this cool infographic about how Swedish hamburger chain Max Hamburger utilizes Trees of Hope to address its CO2 emissions.
They also just released this great new video about the project:

The Rainforest Alliance conducted its on-site, third-party assessment of Trees of Hope in April and its report is expected to be released by the end of 2016.
Trees of Hope received a press mention alongside COTAP in a Washington Times article (see ‘COTAP Updates’ below).
You can offset your CO2 emissions through the Trees of Hope project here.

Uganda Updates

The 2015 annual report is now published for our partner Ecotrust Uganda’s Trees for Global Benefits project.
During 2015, the project added 1,533 participating households, 1,323 hectares (5.1 square miles) to its area under management, paid $209,506 to participating farmers, and planted trees projected to sequester 266,354 tonnes of CO2!
In addition to its annual report, Ecotrust put out this outstanding summary email of 2015 highlights.
Trees for Global Benefits has now been issued credits for 989,059 tonnes of CO2 through 2015, which means it has now surpassed the 1 million tonne mark this year.
Ecotrust shared its impressive progress distributing Solvatten water purification units, helping over 1,000 rural households avoid water-borne diseases and obtain many other benefits. Not only that, Ecotrust produced this video on Solvatten user experiences:

Check out the email highlights from Ecotrust’s May Stakeholder Event (video here and photo gallery here).
Hungry for more? Thought so! Read more about Ecotrust’s millionth tonne and their eco-tourism activities here and their HIV prevention work and Solvatten expansion to the Lira district in this bulletin.
You can offset your CO2 emissions through Trees for Global Benefits project here.

India Updates

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hosted by Khasi Project Leader Tambor Lyngdoh during his May visit to Mawphlang village in the East Khasi Hills. Videos at https://goo.gl/Liyvcc.
The 2015 annual report is now finalized for the Khasi Hills REDD+ Project.
During 2015, the project reached $34,473 in payments made to communities for ecosystem services, and it has now achieved 68,404 tonnes of CO2 reductions through forest protection and restoration.
The project’s first third-party verification, by Rainforest Alliance and Bioclimate, is slated for this November with a verification report expected in early 2017.
You can offset your CO2 emissions through the Khasi project here.

More COTAP Updates

Organizational Clients. A big THANKS to our growing, global list of new and repeat organizational clients, including the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), WTSMed/Restorative Formulations, Wellspring Spa, The Plan Vivo Foundation, Monarch Media, and the Guerrilla Foundation.

new-repeat-client-logos-summer-2016-newsletter

Partner Payments & Credit Retirements. In late January, COTAP completed a round of carbon credit retirements which can be viewed at COTAP.org/Transparency. The next round of project payments will begin on approximately August 22.

Partner Annual Reports and Documentation. The 2015 annual report for the Trees of Hope Malawi project is still being finalized. All projects’ most recent Annual Reports, Project Design Documents (PDD), Technical Specifications, and Verification Reports can be found in COTAP’s Dropbox folder.

Expedia Earth Day Fair. COTAP accepted Expedia Inc.’s invitation to participate in its Earth Day Fair on 4/22 up in Bellevue, Washington. That’s our sweet table ->

Press. Since our last newsletter, COTAP was featured in the “Where to Buy?” section of an Ecosystem Marketplace article, our transparency was applauded by the monthly business magazine of CPA Australia, and we received a mention in a fun Washington Times article about the carbon neutrality pledges and activities of U.S. presidential candidates. More juicy details at COTAP.org/Press!

Updated Twitter handle. We’re now at @COTAP! If you already follow us, this updates automatically. Use the new handle when mentioning or messaging us on Twitter. A big THANKS to the folks at Zinc.it (formerly Cotap.com) for giving this to us.

Offsetting to All COTAP Projects

If all of our projects seem awesome, that’s because they are! If you’d like to address your unavoidable CO2 emissions and change lives by supporting our projects equally, you can do so at any level you choose – either by dollar amount or by the tonne. As always, 90.9% goes to projects and it’s 100% tax-deductible for U.S. residents.

Until Next Time…

Please take a moment to share our newsletter via the social media links at right. Our archive is at COTAP.org/Newsletters. If this was shared with you and you’d like to receive updates from us directly, sign up at COTAP.org/email. We share updates less than once per month and when there’s big news.

Thanks for your support,

TW_signature

Tim Whitley
COTAP founder

Posted in Clinton Foundation, India, Malawi, Meet a Farmer, Nicaragua, Press, Transparency, Uganda, Updates | Comments Off on COTAP’s Summer 2016 Newsletter

COTAP and Trees of Hope mentioned in The Washington Times

February 14th, 2016

Both COTAP and our partner the Clinton Development Initiative’s Trees of Hope project were recently mentioned in a Washington Times piece entitled “Bernie Sanders goes carbon-neutral as Hillary Clinton breaks pledge.” We should note here that COTAP is a public charity, and that it’s independent and non-political. That said, we feel this article has an unnecessarily negative spin on it (this Oct. 2015 piece from CNN is just as bad).

Here’s why. Though the article makes an interesting point or two, it is substantively misleading about the offsetting process: it’s not appropriate to offset emissions of a given scope or case (i.e. a presidential campaign) until after all of the emissions have occurred and have been measured. In other words, isn’t possible for any candidate’s presidential campaign to break a carbon neutrality pledge until after the election is done – in November 2016.

Posted in blog, Clinton Foundation, Malawi, Press, Updates | Comments Off on COTAP and Trees of Hope mentioned in The Washington Times

COTAP’s Winter 2015/2016 Newsletter

December 29th, 2015

Due to a large number of updates, we put a simple summary in the actual email newsletter linking to this post, which contains all the details, photos, and links. Enjoy!

New Beneficiary Profiles from Uganda and Malawi

Meet (left to right) Musingo Mikhaya, Dorothy and Vekelani Nthala, Daniel Mukhwana, and Petrol Khinda. Together they’re projected to earn $1,567 for planting 1,363 trees which will sequester over 431 tonnes of CO2. Check out their profiles to see how their supplemental carbon offset earnings are improving their lives.

Transparency Updates

Partner Payments & Credit Retirements. In early November we completed project payments to our four projects for tonnes pooled from our individual and business supporters all over the world. We’re currently in the process of retiring these credits, the progress of which can be tracked at COTAP.org/Transparency.

Annual Reports. Since our last project update, the 2014 Malawi and India Annual Reports were approved and posted to our Transparency page, and can be found with all projects’ most recent Annual Reports, Project Design Documents (PDD) and Technical Specifications (TS) in COTAP’s Dropbox folder.

Phase-out of the Sofala Mozambique Project

In February, COTAP paused allocations to Sofala, meaning no money coming in would go towards buying carbon credits from the project until it re-attained good standing. That did not happen. In October, project operator Associação Envirotrade Carbon Livelihoods announced its decision to formally wind down the project.

The project is will thus to be phased out of COTAP and replaced in the coming months. A final third-party verification is underway. When the report is released we’ll share it, along with our plan for addressing any projected CO2 reduction shortfall.

Plan Vivo Foundation Updates

(Full gallery by ZeroMission is here.) From September 28-30, the Plan Vivo Foundation and its longtime partner ZeroMission hosted the biannual Plan Vivo stakeholder event in Sigtuna, Sweden. COTAP met with Plan Vivo staff as well as Kahlil Baker of Taking Root (Nicaragua), Pauline Nantongo Kalunda and Sarah Nachuha of Ecotrust (Uganda), and Ariana Constant of the Clinton Development Initiative (Malawi). Plan Vivo unveiled its brief outlining its very strong alignment with 7 of the 17 recently announced United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals.

Last but not least, Plan Vivo also recently released its annual report and announced that, for the first time, they’re offsetting their own organization carbon emissions… through COTAP!

Posted in blog, Clinton Foundation, Malawi, Meet a Farmer, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Transparency, Uganda, Updates | Comments Off on COTAP’s Winter 2015/2016 Newsletter

Meet A Farmer: Petrol Khinda

December 2nd, 2015

Community: Nthanga
Year joined: 2008
Number of trees planted: 433 trees in 13×100-meter segments of boundary plantings
Carbon benefit created by Sinoliyamu: 106 tonnes of CO2
Earnings to date: $276
Total expected earnings: $460 (over 10 years, based on successful maintenance of plantings)

Petrol Khinda decided to join the Clinton Development Initiative’s Trees of Hope project in Malawi because he wanted to improve soil fertility on his farm. Prior to this, he had been farming on a degraded land, yielding low crop harvests. After learning about the different species of trees that can help to restore soil fertility, Petrol started growing trees and integrating them into his farmland.

Petrol has used his earnings from carbon credits he’s generated to purchase inorganic farm inputs. These include granulated urea, a bag of which he is proudly displaying in the above photo. It supplements the organic input sources, locally referred to as “green manure,” from the trees he is growing. He believes that he will have a bumper yield this year, which will provide plenty of food for his household throughout the remainder of the year.

Support Farmers Like Petrol

Create income for farming families of the Clinton Development Initiative’s Trees of Hope project here and learn more about the project at COTAP.org/Malawi.

Posted in Clinton Foundation, Malawi, Meet a Farmer | Comments Off on Meet A Farmer: Petrol Khinda

Meet A Farmer: Dorothy & Vekelani Nthala

October 4th, 2015

Community: Tchale, Malawi
Year joined: 2008
Number of trees planted: 600 trees in 18×100-meter segments of boundary plantings
Carbon benefit created by Sinoliyamu: 147 tonnes of CO2
Earnings to date: $381
Total expected earnings: $635 (over 10 years, based on successful maintenance of plantings)

Dorothy and Vekelani Nthala wanted to have impact on their own lives as well as their community’s. Planting trees with Trees of Hope Project seemed ideal, as they recognized the ability of trees to improve the soils. As they are subsistence farmers, soil health is integral to the success of their crop yields, and thus an improvement in soil quality related to the planting of trees is critically important to their well-being. The couple joined and started planting their trees in 2008.

They’ve used the revenue from carbon credits they’ve generated to purchase iron corrugated sheets for their house. The iron sheets have saved them from worrying about the rains since their roof no longer leaks, unlike the grass-thatched roof they had previously. The couple says that their trees also provide poles for constructing their tobacco-curing sheds and firewood for cooking. They noted that the soil fertility of their field is improving with the help of the trees they are growing.

Support Farmers Like Dorothy & Vekelani