Around a third of people worldwide still cook on open fire. That means most people in developing countries. Such habit is both lethal due to poisonous carbon monoxide being inhaled and burning hazard, and environmentally harmful due to the massive amount of firewood that needs to be collected, and the amounts of Co2 being released in the atmosphere.
In Africa alone, 1 billion people – that’s 80% of the continent’s population – rely on such open fire, with women putting their lives in the front line to cook for their family. More than 600,000 people die each year because of such cooking habit. That s more than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, and this toll will keep increasing unless something tangible is done.
Clean cooking, consisting in using appliances of various kind that result in a higher combustion efficiency (and therefore, less poisonous carbon monoxide being released, and less firewood being consumed for the same amount fo food being cooked), can significantly and immediately curb this terrible trend.
Clean cooking has many other positive impacts, such as freeing up time for education and income generation activities, and gender equality.
While some technologies are fully sustainable (running on electricity or biogas / biofuels) and address more developed communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, improved cookstoves still work using firewood or charcoal, with the potential of significantly uplift the livelihoods of more rural communities. Such technologies are complementary and simply address different communities within Sub-Saharan Africa.
Improved cookstoves still run on firewood, but require a lot less biomass to produce the same amount of meals. That way, women and their daughters don’t need to cut down as many trees, therefore instantly reducing overall deforestation.
By using high-efficiency stove, women and their children are no longer exposed to excessive amounts of carbon monoxide, which now fall within WHO range, nor fear domestic accidents due to fire hazard. Clean cooking results in less acute respiratory illnesses, less cataracts, less heart conditions, and less cancers.
With less time needed to collect firewood and less time spent being rundown with illnesses, women and children can spend more of their time learning and working. Less deforestation, less diseases and deaths, more homework, that’s a no brainer.
Culturally, it takes time to switch to electricity and gas cooking. Improved cookstoves are not altering the way women cook, and that s also why they traditionally come with massive adhesion rates.
Progress towards clean cooking has been significant in Asia, but still remains marginal in Sub-Saharan Africa. While many international institutions such as the United Nations and The African Development Bank are mobilizing resources to improve access to clean cooking through various instruments and initiatives, approximately $1 Billion of investments a year is still needed to reach universal access to clean cooking by 2030.
Just under 10 million SSA households have basic clean cookstoves, while another 5-7 million households use an intermediate alternative, such as a “rocket” stove or highly improved charcoal stoves.
Only Climate Finance, consisting in the generation and transaction of carbon credits, can bridge that gap and offer financing at scale. This therefore requires a transparent and efficient carbon credits market.
Tembo Climate took advantage of the last 2 years to lead such change.
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