Cardboard-box 'oven' wins climate change prize

An $8 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food and sterilise water could help save the lives of three billion of the world's poor.

It is to be trialled in 10 countries including Indonesia, India and South Africa.

Called the Kyoto Box, it is named after the United Nations' Kyoto protocol that seeks to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

It has won the Climate Change Challenge's $100,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.

"We're saving lives and saving trees," said the Kyoto Box's developer, Jon Boehmer, a Norwegian based in Kenya, in east Africa.

The FT Climate Change Challenge was backed by the British newspaper, the Financial Times, the technology group Hewlett-Packard, which sponsored the award, and development group Forum for the Future.

The other four finalists were:

a garlic-based feed additive to cut methane emissions from livestock;

an indoor cooling system using hollow tiles;

a cover for truck wheels to reduce fuel use; and

a "giant industrial microwave" for creating charcoal.