Almost one-in-three people globally will still be mainly using polluting cooking fuels in 2030, research shows

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/930272

 

 News Release 4-Oct-2021
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Exeter

 

Almost one-in-three people around the world will still be mainly using polluting cooking fuels and technologies– a major source of disease and environmental destruction and devastation – in 2030, new research warned.

This rises to more than four-in-five in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of people mainly using polluting fuels is growing at an alarming rate.

A new study, carried out by UK researchers and the World Health Organization (WHO), has estimated that just under 3 billion people worldwide – including more than one billion in Sub-Saharan Africa - will still mainly be using polluting fuels such as wood fuels and charcoal at the end of the decade.

These ‘dirty’ fuels are a source of major health risks as they produce high levels of household air pollution – chronic exposure to which increases the risk of heart disease, pneumonia, lung cancer and strokes, amongst others.  

While the overall percentage of the global population mainly using polluting cooking fuels has been steadily decreasing since 1990, this trend is already showing signs of stagnation. Six in in ten people in rural areas are still reliant on biomass fuels such as wood and charcoal.

Reports by the WHO and others have attributed household air pollution from these fuels to millions of deaths per year – comparable to the death toll from outdoor air pollution. At the same time, fuel collection is often tasked to women and children, reducing opportunities for education, or income generation.

Polluting fuels are also an important cause of environmental degradation and climate change, with the black carbon from residential biomass cooking estimate to account for 25% of anthropogenic global black carbon emissions each year.

The researchers insist the pivotal new study shows that, although progress has been made, the quest to deliver universal access to clean cooking by 2030 is “far off track”. 

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