Paris Summit on clean cooking in Africa ends with $2.2 billion in global pledges

Sub: Environment

Sec: Int conventions

Tag: clean cooking

About Paris Summit on clean cooking:

Inaugural Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa held in Paris on May 14, 2024.
Aimed to address the health and climate impacts of traditional cooking methods in Africa.
Gathered over 1,000 delegates from nearly 60 countries.
Financial commitments:
- Governments and the private sector pledged over $2.2 billion to support clean cooking initiatives in Africa.
- Norway allocated $50 million, the EU committed $431 million, and the African Development Bank pledged $2 billion over the next decade.
- African Development Bank will allocate 20% of its financing for energy to clean cooking.
Governments aim to promote effective policies to ensure the widespread adoption of clean cooking methods.
The estimated cost to achieve universal access in Africa is $4 billion annually.

Current Situation:

Over a billion people in Africa rely on charcoal and wood for cooking.
Traditional methods pose serious health and environmental risks.
Clean cooking has almost been achieved in China, India and Latin America, but remains a universal failure in Africa.
- In Benin, Ethiopia, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, more than 80 per cent of the population still depends on biomass to cook their meals.
- In Nigeria, Kenya or Ghana, it’s 70 per cent.
Countries like Uganda and Mozambique are implementing electric cooking devices as examples to follow.

Health and Environmental Impact:

Household air pollution causes 3.2 million deaths annually, with Africa disproportionately affected.
Over 600,000 people, mainly women and children, die prematurely each year in Africa due to respiratory diseases from cooking practices.
Economic Cost:
- Global health costs are estimated at $1.4 trillion annually, with over half in Africa.
- Access to clean cooking is essential for human dignity, fairness, and equity, particularly for women.

Clean fuels and technologies:

Clean fuels and technologies are those that attain the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO) levels recommended in the WHO global air quality guidelines (2021).
Fuel and technology combinations will be classified as clean if they achieve:
- either the annual average air quality guideline level (AQG, 5 µg/m3) or the Interim Target- 1 level (IT1, 35 µg/m3) for PM2.5; and
- either the 24-hour average air quality guideline level (AQG, 4 mg/m3) or the Interim Target-1 level (IT-1, 7 mg/m3) for CO
Examples include biogas, LPG, electricity, ethanol, natural gas, and solar power.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG):

Liquefied petroleum gas, also referred to as liquid petroleum gas (LPG or LP gas), is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, n-butane and isobutane. It can sometimes contain some propylene, butylene, and isobutene.
LPG is used as a fuel gas in heating appliances, cooking equipment, and vehicles.
It is increasingly used as an aerosol propellant and a refrigerant, replacing chlorofluorocarbons to reduce damage to the ozone layer.
When specifically used as a vehicle fuel, it is referred to as autogas or gas.

Biogas:

Biogas is a gaseous renewable energy source produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste, wastewater, and food waste.
Biogas is produced by anaerobic digestion with anaerobic organisms or methanogens inside an anaerobic digester, biodigester or bioreactor.
The gas composition is primarily methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) and may have small amounts of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), moisture and siloxanes.
The methane can be combusted or oxidized with oxygen. This energy release allows biogas to be used as fuel; it can be used in fuel cells and for heating purposes, such as in cooking.
It can also be used in a gas engine to convert the energy in the gas into electricity and heat.

Source: DTE