The International Energy Agency has raised alarm that one billion Africans still cook with open fires or unsafe fuels, putting their health and the environment in danger.
In a new report released on Friday, the IEA warned that these cooking methods cause as much greenhouse gas pollution yearly as the aviation industry.
“It is one of the greatest injustices of our time, especially in Africa,” IEA chief Fatih Birol told AFP. He said four out of five African homes depend on burning wood, charcoal, farm waste or animal dung for cooking.
According to the report, using these fuels pollutes the air inside and outside homes with fine particles that damage the lungs and heart.
The IEA said about 815,000 Africans die prematurely every year due to poor indoor air quality caused by unsafe cooking.
Women and children suffer the most because they spend hours daily gathering fuel and keeping the fire alive, which stops them from working or going to school.
Birol said, “This problem can be solved for once and for all with an annual investment of two billion dollars.” He explained that this amount is just 0.1 percent of global energy spending.
He added that since a major summit in Paris last year, \$470 million out of \$2.2 billion pledged for clean cooking has been distributed. A stove factory is being built in Malawi, and affordable stove programmes have started in Uganda and Ivory Coast.
The IEA also said that nearly 1.5 billion people in Asia and Latin America have gained access to modern cooking fuels since 2010, but sub-Saharan Africa is still far behind.
Birol noted that clean solutions like solar electricity, renewable gas, and liquefied petroleum gas can prevent deforestation and cut carbon emissions.
The IEA said that if action is taken, 4.7 million premature deaths could be prevented in sub-Saharan Africa by 2040. It would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 540 million tons every year, almost the same as what the global aviation sector emits.
