A Cooking Revolution: How Clean Energy and Cookstoves Are Saving Lives
The importance of Clean Cookstoves cannot be overemphasized. In this report, Chef José Andrés explains what President Obama, Indian Prime Minister Modi, and advocates like himself are doing to save lives and combat climate change through cooking.
As a chef, I can think of few things more beautiful than that. However, I also know how deadly such a simple act can be — not only to our health, but to our environment.
Chef José Andrés in Haiti
Think about it: For Americans, turning on the stove means simply turning a knob or switch. For people living in developing countries, particularly women and children, it means hours of collecting fuels like firewood, dung, or coal to burn in a rudimentary, smoky cookstove or over an open fire. The result is a constant source of toxic smoke that families breathe in daily, causing diseases like child pneumonia, heart disease, and lung cancer — not to mention taking a child away from her education.
In fact, diseases caused by smoke from open fires and stoves claim 4.3 million lives every year. That’s more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
And the environment suffers, too. When people collect wood every day from their local forests to create charcoal or fuel for wood-burning stoves, it creates an unsustainable pace of deforestation that leads to mudslides, loss of watershed, and other environmental consequences. These stoves also contribute up to 25 percent of black carbon emissions, a pollutant that contributes directly to climate change.
You see, from what we cook to how we cook, our food connects with our lives on so many levels. That’s why having access to better technology and clean energy for cooking is as equally important as the ingredients in the food being prepared.
It’s also why I’m proud to support an effort to bring clean cookstoves and fuels to millions of people in developing countries.
Obama and Modi
Together with the United Nations, the U.S. government, and partners around the world, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves focuses on working with local communities and organizations to develop a market for cookstoves and fuels that significantly reduce emissions, cook more efficiently, and fit with local customs and culture. Under President Obama, the U.S. has exceeded its commitment to this effort, providing more than double the investment that we promised when this program launched in 2010.
The Obama administration’s investment goes a long way toward achieving our goal of bringing access to clean cookstoves and fuels to 100 million households in places like China, Guatemala, Kenya, and India by 2020.
What are you doing to save lives and combat climate change through cooking? Leave a comment below:
From [www.whitehouse.gov]
My Company in a bid to contribute to other stake holders efforts in solving the cooking problems of the rural communities is in partnership with National Alliance for Clean cookstoves Nigeria and Global Alliance for Clean cookstoves, we produce tested clean cookstoves of minimum of 200,00pa since 2005 till date. We are training women, youths in the production and distribution of the clean cookstoves.
Musa Raymond is a “household” name in this regard! The Alliance is aware of your giant strides in clean cookstoves production. Your new “lighter” is also a great product that households in various communities will be glad to adopt for lighting their improved cookstoves. Keep the fire burning and the smoke away!
My NGO Associate for the reduction of carbon emission is working towards transforming the Nigerian environment from pollution to free environmental production benefiting her citizens. We produce Solar Cookers for use in place of firewood.
Solar Cookers does not emit carbon and is safer around children in remote grassroot area where fuel wood is scarce and the prices of fossil fuel for cooking is at a high side that an average rural poor cannot afford. We are looking for partners in this regard to procure materials and make solar cookers available on a large quantity for people to buy.
Thank you for your comment, Joseph. Are you a partner of the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves? If you’re not, you can register to become a partner here http://nigeriacleancooking.org/alliance/partners/become-a-partner. You will meet other clean and improved stove producers like yourself and can quickly network to achieve your large scale stove production goal.
You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter here if you would like to receive updates like funding opportunities, clean cooking events etc. http://bit.ly/NACCNewsletterSubscription
Great blog! Aside from health related issues, a family would benefit from replacing old cook stoves and open-air fires because the new methods are so much more efficient.