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UNEP: Nearly four in five people in Africa exposed to household air pollution of cooking smoke
Nearly four in five people in Africa are exposed to household air pollution of cooking smoke. That is part of a larger air pollution crisis, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
Worldwide, nearly one in three people cook on inefficient stoves or over open fires, breathing in harmful smoke from so-called solid fuels such as wood, charcoal and animal dung.
Some 99 percent of the world breathes household or outdoor air that the World Health Organization (WHO) considers unsafe.
Household air pollution is devastating for everyone. It led to the premature deaths of an estimated 3.1 million people in 2021. Children are especially vulnerable because they breathe at a faster rate than adults – meaning they inhale more pollutants – and their immune systems are still developing, leaving them less able to fight off disease. In 2021, household air pollution led to the deaths of 237,000 children under five.
Household air pollution also disproportionately affects women, as they are most often doing the cooking. In Africa, women and children account for 60 percent of early deaths related to smoke inhalation and household air pollution, according to the International Energy Agency.
For billions of people across the developing world, particularly children and women, mealtime starts by firing up a kerosene stove, lighting a charcoal grill or setting some logs ablaze.
This type of household air pollution led to 3.1 million premature deaths in 2021 and is part of a larger crisis driving climate change and biodiversity loss.
“Household air pollution is one of the world’s greatest public health threats and it is particularly harmful for children,” said Martina Otto, Head of Secretariat of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition of the UNEP.
“But the good news is that cleaner cooking technology is plentiful, relatively inexpensive, and already helping to save lives. The challenge now is to get this technology into the hands of more people.”
Yet, household air pollution is still the most underinvested health and environmental problem in the world.
Globally, more than half the trees that are cut down are used for firewood and charcoal. As these forests fall, they take with them habitats home to a huge array of plants, animals and other life forms.
Switching to cleaner fuels – such as kerosene and natural gas – can help counter deforestation and an alarming rise in biodiversity loss.
The use of high-polluting cooking fuels, such as coal and firewood, produces as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as the aviation sector.
Switching to cleaner appliances, such as electric stoves, can help lower those emissions, said John Christensen, Director of the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre. This type of technology is increasingly within the reach of poor households in developing nations, he adds. Countries, including many in Africa, are rapidly expanding their power generation based on renewable energy at the same time companies are producing small, affordable solar power systems for households not connected to the electric grid.
“The good news is that technological development and cost reductions have made electric cooking increasingly affordable,” said Christensen.
Globally, $10 billion a year is needed by 2030 to achieve universal access to clean cooking, according to the International Energy Agency.
Current investments are just a fraction of that. “Given the technological advances and price reductions in solar-based cooking technologies, we need to ensure that there is affordable financing for households to purchase them,” Otto said.
She also underscore the importance of highlighting clean cooking targets – particularly electric cooking goals – in countries’ nationally determined contributions, a series of climate-change-related pledges due in 2025.
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