Manifesto

PAL ENERGIES

Clean Cooking & The Image on Clean Cooking

A large majority of households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) do not have access to clean cooking solutions. Currently, a substantial share of cooking wood fuel, particularly charcoal in urban areas, is harvested unsustainably. This lack of access to clean cooking in SSA has constrained the region's progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The demand for charcoal and firewood is driving deforestation and forest degradation, undermining agricultural productivity, food security, water security, and hydroelectric generating capacity, leaving many countries more vulnerable to climate shocks. Additionally, this situation contributes to household air pollution, which in turn adversely impacts health and leads to time poverty and loss of productivity among primary users—women.

Clean cooking is commonly defined as cooking with fuels and stove combinations that meet the standards set by the World Health Organization’s Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality. As of 2020, approximately 2.4 billion people worldwide lacked access to clean cooking, relying on polluting fuels to meet their daily cooking needs. This lack
of access is especially pronounced in SSA, where only 17% of the population currently uses clean cooking solutions.

Furthermore, between 2000 and 2020, the number of people without access to clean cooking increased by nearly 50% in the region, as population growth outpaced improvement in access. The use of polluting fuels is estimated to cause approximately 3.2 million premature deaths annually and hinders progress on gender equality and environmental quality goals. Due to the widespread negative impacts of polluting cooking fuels, universal access to clean cooking was incorporated as one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically under SDG target 7.1.

The Cost of Inaction in Sub- Saharan Africa

The lack of access to clean cooking solutions has a serious impact on many economies in SSA. The cost of inaction is estimated at US$ 750 billion each year, with adverse impacts on climate amounting to US$ 38 billion, health costs at US$ 500 billion, and lost productivity among women at US$ 210 billion. Accelerating access to clean cooking is an urgent development issue for SSA, offering significant potential benefits for the global climate, public health, and the advancement of gender equality.

A large majority of households in SSA (approximately 90%) do not have access to clean cooking, and a substantial share of cooking wood fuel is harvested unsustainably.

This lack of access to clean cooking in SSA has constrained the region's progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The demand for charcoal and firewood is driving deforestation and forest degradation, undermining agricultural productivity, food security, water security, and hydroelectric generating capacity, leaving many countries more vulnerable to climate shocks. Additionally, this situation contributes to household air pollution, which in turn adversely impacts health and leads to time poverty and loss of productivity among primary users—women.

Modern Cooking

Key factors in modern cooking include Cooking Exposure, Cookstove Efficiency, Convenience, Safety of Primary Cookstove, Affordability, and Fuel Availability.

Cooking Exposure evaluates personal exposure to pollutants from cooking activities, which depends on stove emissions, ventilation structure (including cooking location and kitchen volume), and contact time (the duration spent in the cooking environment).
Cookstove Efficiency assesses the performance of the stove in terms of thermal efficiency.

Convenience measures the time spent acquiring fuel (whether through collection or purchase) and preparing both the fuel and the stove for cooking.
Safety of Primary Cookstove evaluates the safety of the most commonly used cookstove in the household.
Affordability assesses a household’s ability to pay for both the cookstove and the fuel.
Fuel Availability evaluates the accessibility of fuel when needed for cooking purposes.

Net Benefits of Modern Cooking

A study published in Nature Sustainability suggests a severe market failure, as the currently most used solution—traditional biomass—produces the lowest social net benefits in nearly all of SSA.

Correcting this failure, which arises from various market and behavioral obstacles, could yield deliver significant health, time and emission benefits. However, it requires the identification and promotion of policies to transform cooking energy use.

Nature Sustainability's study compared nine stove types, divided into three categories: traditional (biomass and charcoal), improved cookstoves (ICS, which includes natural and forced draft biomass as well as forced draft pellets and charcoal), and clean (electric, LPG, and biogas). The insights from this spatial analysis are summarized from two distinct perspectives: social and private. It applies a social discount rate (or social marginal rate of time preference, describing the rate at which money loses value over time) of 3% to weigh costs and benefits over time.

The private scenario accounts only for reduced morbidity, mortality, and the time spent collecting fuel and cooking experienced by households that adopt new cooking technologies. This scenario applies a discount rate of 15%, which is more consistent with individuals’ private rates of time preference.

Results indicate that the social optimum, based on current infrastructure (with "optimal" referring to the stoves with the highest net benefits), corresponds to a cooking energy situation where 765 million people primarily use LPG stoves, 350 million cook with electricity, 19 million use biogas, and about 160,000 use improved biomass cookstoves (biomass forced draft ICS).