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More than two billion people around the world rely on kerosene, wood, charcoal and other biomass for daily cooking. 1 Often burned in open fires or basic cook- stoves these fuels pose serious health risks through household air pollution, with women and children the worst affected. They also contribute to environmental degradation and climate change. In recent years, as awareness of these harmful effects has grown, clean cooking has become an increasingly prominent part of the international development agenda. From its origins in small-scale pilot projects in the 1990s and 2000s, clean cook- ing has grown in scale and complexity to encompass a wide range of technolo- gies, fuels, initiatives, business models and funding instruments. Universal access to clean cooking was included as a target in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and was a prominent theme at the UN climate change conference COP28 in Dubai in December 2023. Clean cooking promises to deliver a range of benefits – for public health, the envi- ronment, emissions reduction and greater economic and gender equality. However, the transition to clean cooking is complex and needs careful planning. There are many possible clean cooking options and it is widely accepted that there is no one- size-fits-all solution for all countries or households. Each solution offers different benefits and drawbacks in terms of ease and cost of deployment, outcomes deliv- ered and local suitability. Achieving universal access will require concerted action from governments, the private sector and international financiers. To date, progress has been slow. Completing SDG 7’s target of “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030 is well off-track. Despite stakehold- er commitments and many promising initiatives the level of investment remains well short of what is required. Yet with a growing number of organizations and initi- atives helping put the conditions for investment at scale in place there are grounds for optimism that this may be about to change. The OPEC Fund for International Development has two decades of experience of working with partner countries in realizing their clean cooking ambitions. With growing interest among its member countries in supporting the clean cooking agenda, the OPEC Fund is working to scale up its investments as part of ambitious commitments on climate action and clean energy access.
1 IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank, WHO (2024) Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report, https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-sdg7-the-energy-progress-report-2024
AN OPEC FUND KNOWLEDGE SERIES REPORT 2024
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