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TIME POVERTY, ESPECIALLY FOR WOMEN Women and children in low-income countries spend an aver- age of 10 hours per week gathering cooking fuel and tend- ing fires. 7 The socio-economic consequences are significant. This time poverty from the use of traditional fuels undermines women’s empowerment by taking up time that could other- wise be spent on livelihood activities, education and partic- ipation in community life. The annual economic cost is esti- mated at US$800 billion globally. 8 Research has found the time saved from using clean cooking methods could result in a 3-4 percent increase in daily income per household. 9 Wom- en and girls are also exposed to an increased risk of injury and violence while gathering fuel, particularly in conflict set- tings. An assessment by the United Nations High Commis- sioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Chad found that 42 percent of women in refugee households experienced incidents of sexual or gender-based violence during firewood collection over a six-month period. 10
Traditional cooking fuels are also a driver of climate change. Land use change, principally from deforestation and forest degradation, accounts for an estimated 12-20 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 12 Roughly 30 per- cent of this comes from fuelwood harvesting. 13 In addition, many traditional fuels emit long-lived greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, as well as short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), including black carbon (soot). 14 Roughly 2 percent of global CO 2 -equivalent emissions are at- tributed to unsustainable harvesting and incomplete biomass combustion for household fuel consumption – roughly equiv- alent to emissions from the aviation sector. 15 However, SLCPs have an even larger impact on global temperatures and the climate system in the short run than CO 2 . With household en- ergy one of the most controllable sources of black carbon, clean cooking was identified at COP27 as a “breakthrough” area for halving emissions by 2030. 16
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The use of biomass for cooking is a significant driver of de- forestation and environmental harm. Fuelwood for household cooking and heating makes up 55 percent of all wood harvest- ed globally. 11 Unsustainable biomass harvesting for cooking can increase habitat losses and reduce biodiversity, exacerbate soil erosion and disrupt local water cycles. Many of the earli- est clean cooking initiatives were driven by a desire to protect the environment, before the additional detriments to health, livelihoods and climate were fully studied and understood.
7 Clean Cooking Alliance, Gender and Clean Cooking, undated, https:// cleancooking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/CCA-gender-sheet-ENGLISH.pdf 8 UN (2022), SDG 7 TAG Policy Briefs: Addressing Energy’s Interlinkages with other SDGs, https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/Policy%20Briefs%20 -2022%20Energy%27s%20Interlinkages%20With%20Other%20SDGs.pdf 9 Simkovich SM, Williams KN, Pollard S, Dowdy D, Sinharoy S, Clasen TF, Puzzolo E, Checkley W. (2019) “A Systematic Review to Evaluate the Association between Clean Cooking Technologies and Time Use in Low- and Middle-Income Countries”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 27:16(13), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31252636/ 10 Clean Cooking Alliance (2014) Statistical Snapshot: Access to Improved Cookstoves and Fuels and its Impact on Women’s Safety in Crises, https:// cleancooking.org/binary-data/ATTACHMENT/file/000/000/331-1.pdf 11 Clean Cooking Alliance, Nature and Clean Cooking, 2024, https://cleancooking. org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Nature-and-Clean-Cooking-Factsheet.pdf
12 Charlene Watson and Liane Schalatek (2020) Climate Finance Thematic Briefing: REDD+ Finance, ODI, https://climatefundsupdate.org/wp-content/ uploads/2022/03/CFF5-REDD-Finance_ENG-2021.pdf 13 Clean Cooking Alliance (2022) Accelerating clean cooking as a nature-based climate solution, https://cleancooking.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ Accelerating-Clean-Cooking-as-a-Nature-Based-Climate-Solution.pdf 14 Black carbon is a major contributor to global climate change, possibly second only to CO 2 . Per unit of mass, black carbon has a warming impact on climate that is 460–1,500 times stronger than CO 2 . Black carbon is produced both naturally and by human activities and is a result of the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass. 15 Clean Cooking Alliance (2023) Clean Cooking as a Catalyst for Sustainable Food Systems, https://cleancooking.org/reports-and-tools/clean-cooking-as-a- catalyst-for-sustainable-food-systems/ 16 Climate Champions (2022) Clean cooking named as a critical “Breakthrough” to halve emissions by 2030’, UNFCCC, https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/ clean-cooking-named-as-a-critical-breakthrough-to-halve-emissions-by- 2030/#:~:text=At%20COP27%2C%20the%20UN%20Climate,2.4%20billion%20 people%20through%20at
AN OPEC FUND KNOWLEDGE SERIES REPORT 2024
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