Climate Action 2011-2012

and carbon monoxide monitors show that the new stoves
cut indoor smoke by 90 per cent. The stoves also reduce the
amount of wood use by 60 per cent, thereby saving 12 to 15
hours a week of wood-gathering for the women and children
of each household.
impact carbon
In Uganda, Impact Carbon is working to shift the country
towards widespread adoption of efficient, healthy cookstoves
that reduce charcoal and wood use by 35 to 65 per cent and
save families more than US$75 per year.
The Ugandan project has identified and developed a
market for stoves, troubleshooting manufacturing and
distribution problems and finding financing for producers
and consumers. Carbon finance has now provided hundreds
of thousands of dollars in subsidies to poor consumers and
facilitated the distribution of more than 95,000 efficient
stoves to date. The project has other ancillary benefits
such as supporting the development of local, sustainable
manufacturing enterprises and spurring small and medium
enterprise (SME) growth in the retail sector.
tHe World bank
Building on lessons learned from its Lighting Africa
programme, a joint World Bank-IFC initiative that facilitates
private sector led uptake of off-grid lighting solutions
in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank has launched a
new programme, the Africa Clean Cooking Initiative, to
stimulate the development and commercialisation of a new
generation of clean cookstoves in sub-Saharan Africa.
The initiative aims to develop a large-scale, market-driven
programme to promote the dissemination of advanced,
improved stoves and the sustainable production and supply
of fuel to benefit the majority of African households reliant
on solid biomass for cooking.
The Africa Clean Cooking Initiative will be designed
to leverage new technology and market developments,
partnerships, and financing mechanisms that could enable
the private sector to address existing market barriers
to dissemination and scaleup, leading to consistent
improvements in design, performance, and affordability
of stoves with a focus on adaptability and local needs. The
alignment of market and consumer incentives in the initiative
can reduce inefficient production and use of biomass,
reducing the impact on natural resources and on climate.
conclusion
Cooking with toxic and polluting fuels over open fires and
inefficient stoves is part of a vicious and complex cycle
that significantly impacts the environment, human health
and economic development. But it is one that can be
broken. The benefits of affordable, accessible and culturallyappropriate
clean cookstoves are clear: cleaner air; increased
environmental sustainability; improved safety; enhanced
livelihoods; and better health.
There is mounting evidence that smoke-producing
biomass contributes to climate change at regional and global
© Robert Lange
Robert V. Lange, President of ICSEE,
with members of the Maasai Project.
levels, indicating that efforts to mitigate climate change must
take household energy issues into consideration. Cleanburning
stoves can lessen the impact of climate change
by improving the combustion efficiency of fuels used for
cooking, and by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the
unsustainable gathering of biomass and coal.
As the Alliance celebrates its first anniversary this autumn
with multi-million dollar financial commitments: strategic,
sector-wide recommendations from 350 global experts; highprofile
Ambassadors to help tell this story; and a growing
roster of experienced and dedicated partners, it is uniquely
positioned to address and arrest this silent killer in Africa
and throughout the world.
Radha Muthiah is Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Clean
Cookstoves. She has over two decades of experience successfully fostering
partnerships and alliances in the for-profit and non-profit sectors, and
developing and executing innovative business models to promote economic
development. Muthiah holds an MBA from Stanford University.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, launched in 2010, is an
innovative public-private partnership dedicated to saving lives, improving
livelihoods, empowering women and combating climate change. Led by
the United Nations Foundation, the Alliance has set a ‘100 by ’20’ goal for
100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020,
towards the long-term goal of universal adoption. The Alliance’s partners
include 21 implementing and donor countries from five continents;
private-sector companies; numerous project implementers and nongovernmental
organisations, many who work in Africa; and the United
Nations, which has made a strong commitment to the Alliance through
many of its agencies. The Alliance facilitated the Lima Consensus,
a groundbreaking agreement among stakeholders regarding the
development of a tiered, interim health and efficiency cookstove standard.
The Alliance has also enhanced the technical capacity of regional stove
testing centres in Ethiopia and China; supported the formation of regional
alliances in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and worked to develop a
monitoring and evaluation framework among its 11 expert working groups,
in order to accurately and transparently reach its 100 by ’20 goal.
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW, 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel: +1 202 650 5345 | Fax: +1 202 650 5350
Email: info@cleancookstoves.org
Web: www.cleancookstoves.org
99 climateactionprogramme.org