Efficient Biomass Cooking in Africa for Climate Change Mitigation and Development
Nearly three billion people continue to use wood fuels for their daily cooking. The global policy discourse increasingly emphasizes clean fuels, notably gas and electricity. Yet, electricity and gas are expensive, and their supply chains are typically interrupted in rural areas. They will hence not reach the global poor soon, especially in Africa. As an alternative, this paper shows that fuel-efficient biomass stoves can contribute climate mitigation potentials in Sub-Saharan Africa that exceed the total CO2-equivalent emissions of a medium-sized European country. Abatement costs of this policy are low at $2 to 10 per ton. Furthermore, we demonstrate that cooking-related emissions will likely double by 2050. We conclude by arguing that a rapid dissemination policy should be based on two crucial steps: First, fuel-efficient stoves should be field-tested region by region and adapted to satisfy local cooking needs. Second, cookstoves that have proven to be adopted by users should be heavily subsidized at scale.
Duke University
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3919098