Why extinguishing Africa's dirty cooking fuel crisis is a global priority
The scourge of dirty cooking fuels in Africa – an invisible killer for half a million women and children each year – stirred up pledges of €2.2 billion in Paris this week as oil and gas companies joined efforts to bring about access to healthy cooking methods by 2030.
Four in five Africans – mostly women and girls – cook their food over open fires and primitive stoves that are powered by polluting fuels such as wood, charcoal, kerosene and animal waste.
Three-quarters of people rely on these smoky, rudimentary cooking systems for their meals. Much of the time they’re used inside small and enclosed spaces.
Among the harmful toxins released: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter.
The result, according to the World Bank, is the premature deaths of about 600,000 Africans a year – making dirty cooking an even bigger killer than malaria.
Then there are the hundreds of billions of euros in associated health and climate impacts, including increased carbon emissions and deforestation.
Forgotten issue
“This summit has delivered an emphatic commitment to an issue that has been ignored by too many people, for too long,” said Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which convened the Paris event, held on Tuesday.
Pledges came from the European Union, the African Development Bank, countries like the US, investment bodies and oil and gas companies including TotalEnergies and Shell.
Read more on RFI English
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