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Making the clean available: Escaping India’s Chulha Trap
Abstract
Solid cookfuel pollution is the largest energy-related health risk globally and most important cause of ill-health for Indian women and girls. At 700 million cooking with open biomass chulhas, the Indian population exposed has not changed in several decades, in spite of hundreds of programs to make the “available clean”, i.e. to burn biomass cleanly in advanced stoves. While such efforts continue, there is need to open up another front to attack this health hazard. Gas and electric cooking, which are clean at the household, are already the choice for one-third of Indians. Needed is a new agenda to make the “clean available”, i.e., to vigorously extend these clean fuels into populations that are caught in the Chulha Trap. This will require engaging new actors including the power and petroleum ministries as well as the ministry of health, which have not to date been directly engaged in addressing this problem. It will have implications for LPG imports, distribution networks, and electric and gas user technologies, as well as setting new priorities for electrification and biofuels, but at heart needs to be addressed as a health problem, not one of energy access, if it is to be solved effectively.
... Across central-eastern India, coal is, for this reason, a long-established household fuel, but also a source of livelihood for those who informally collect, transport and sell it to smaller industries, restaurants and households [1][2][3], in spite of the severe health effects when it is burned in poorly ventilated indoor spaces [4,5]. Beyond coal, low-income communities across rural India and in urban locations similar to Dhuvan Basti make use of a wide range of solid fuels including firewood, dung cakes and crop residue for cooking and heating needs [6,7]. In urban areas, uncertain energy provision has given rise to a sprawling informal household "energy market", beyond the officially supported market for natural gas, and to the development of informal "supply chains". ...
... It provides a range of benefits and drawbacks in terms of costs, availability and practicality of use, which vary according to season, policy changes and other external factors. As widely discussed in the literature, informal solid fuels come at significant health costs as households and entire towns become engulfed in dense smoke in regions already facing severe air pollution challenges from industries, vehicles and other sources [6,8,9]. ...
... A wide body of scholarship examines efforts to either transition households away from solid fuels or to mitigate their negative health impacts. These efforts include, among others, improved cook-stoves that vent smoke away from dwellings and interventions to make cleaner burning household energy, such as LPG or electricity, more affordable or otherwise practically feasible to use for different groups [6,10,11]. Decades of research as well as policy interventions across much of the Global South have yielded some positive changes, but have mainly confirmed the significant challenges involved in finding suitable household energy solutions for poor people [10][11][12]. In this setting, we find limited ethnographic scholarship on the social underpinnings of domestic energy use that helps explain why energy solutions frequently fail to cater to household needs [13][14][15][16]. ...
Despite a range of initiatives to introduce cleaner fuels, a large proportion of poor people in India continue to rely on solid fuels for cooking and heating, with severe implications for personal and family health. This paper seeks to open up the various fuel-supply strategies that underpin domestic energy use in low-income settings to explain the unconventional solutions (jugaad) that households employ to bridge the gap between energy needs and supply of various fuels, including liquefied petroleum gas. We draw on long-term ethnographic engagements in four severely polluted low-income urban settlements in central India’s coal belt to investigate how communities, and primarily women, ensure domestic energy provision. As households struggle to secure a range of potential fuels with different benefits and drawbacks, we outline the socio-cultural and economic processes that shape household energy decision-making. These highly uncertain processes take place within an institutional structure that offers some possibilities, but is overall too rigid to fit the lived realties of low-income residents. Although households commonly understand that there are negative health effects from solid-fuel smoke, pollution and health are only marginal considerations for households facing daily struggles to reduce expenses. We argue that understanding the everyday jugaad of household energy provision is crucial for the possibilities to shift away from fuels damaging to both human health and the environment.
... Till now, limited studies have been done to assess the impacts of solid fuel-burning over cardiovascular health, which indicates that the inhalation of smoke can enhance arterial blood pressure [6][7][8]. As per Smith and Sagar [9], solid fuel-based cooking-related pollution is the largest health hazard, especially for women and girls in India, and about 700 million Indians are exposed to this health hazard. The usages of advance improved cook stoves for cooking using biomass fuel have not been very impressive so far. ...
... CO is a potent pollutant as it can bind very quickly with the haemoglobin and forms carboxyhaemoglobin that results in instantaneous death [10] . It was found that people using biomass as a fuel have more chances of having tuberculosis [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Women and children are majorly affected by the combustion of solid fuels. ...
... Women and children are majorly affected by the combustion of solid fuels. The exposure of these pollutants directly to pregnant women adversely affects the foetus's development, resulting in enhancement of cases such as low birth weight, infant mortality, etc. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The growing children are more susceptible to pollutants because they stay with their mothers. ...
The present study revealed that the traditional cooking practices could load ~ 2.8 ± 1.2 mg/m3 of PM2.5 in the kitchen, leading to womenfolk at risk. The high variability was observed in the measured values as the concentrations were influenced by several factors such as species of fuel wood used, amount of fuel burnt, duration of cooking, ventilation facility in the kitchen, etc. The calculated health quotient showed that the long-term prolong exposure to such PM2.5 concentrations can reduce the lung capacity of the exposed persons due to harmful impacts. A survey about air pollution awareness was also conducted among the village inhabitants, and findings of pollution loading in the kitchen were also shared with them for enabling them to make more informed decisions about choice of fuel types and precautions during the cooking process for avoiding the health risk.
... 4,5 However, meticulously designed studies concerning domestic water and energy have been unable to reach high enough levels of habitual use in LMICs. [6][7][8] Furthermore, several safe water treatments and improved solid-fuel cookstoves, even when correctly used, do not meet the minimum WHO standards consistent with human health. 9,10 The collective cost of these unsuccessful attempts has been enormous: globally, 0·8-1·8 million deaths annually are attributed to unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), 11 and household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels leads to 1·6-3·8 million deaths annually. ...
... 12 For decades, studies have shown disappointing (null) results regarding the health effects of these devices. 6,13,14 Researchers have provided efficacious technologies for free to encourage their use and have devised educational and social marketing campaigns to increase awareness of the value of clean water and clean indoor air, often to little avail. [15][16][17] Researchers and non-governmental organisations have developed strategies to promote behavioural change and have applied peer-pressure tactics and nudges to increase the uptake of health products, with mixed effects. ...
... 32 Additionally, when gas cylinders are subsidised and refills are delivered to the home, the fuel is easy to use as long as the charges are affordable. 6,33 However, the easier option with many technology choices on today's market is to continue conventional practices, because these practices are already habits and are often free. Adding chlorine to a bucket of water, agitating the water, and waiting before use is not particularly easy compared with the use of untreated water. ...
The public health community has tried for decades to show, through evidence-based research, that safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and clean cooking fuels that reduce household air pollution are essential to safeguard health and save lives in low-income and middle-income countries. In the past 40 decades, there have been many innovations in the development of low-cost and efficacious technologies for WASH and household air pollution, but many of these technologies have been associated with disappointing health outcomes, often because low-income households have either not adopted, or inconsistently adopted, these technologies. In this Viewpoint, we argue that public health researchers (ourselves included) have had an oversimplified understanding of poverty; our work has not focused on insights into the lived experience of poverty, with its uncertainties, stresses from constant scarcity, and attendant fears. Such insights are central to understanding why technologies for safe water or clean cooking are unused by so many households that could benefit from them. We argue that, rather than improved versions of household-scale delivery models, transformative investments in safe water and clean cooking for all require utility-scale service models. Until then, research should focus on interim safe water and clean cooking options that are directed towards the utility-scale service model.
... The large hydropower potential and generation capacity under construction should be able to meet the growing energy need of the country [7]. Countries with abundant hydropower potential such as Ecuador, Bhutan and some parts of India such as Himachal Pradesh have successfully incorporated electricity as a clean fuel for cooking [8][9][10]. 'The dominance of and reliance on a single fuel source has seriously hindered Nepal's ability to meet energy needs during times of crisis. ...
... The policies to encourages electric cooking should pay attention to regular electric supply, cost of electric appliances that enables consumers to choose electric cooking appliances. In China and India, the availability of reliable electricity has not only increased the popularity of low-cost electric appliances like water kettles and microwaves but also increased the demand for electric cooking devices that are especially designed for preparing local foods such as pancake and roti [8]. ...
... This led the government to adopt a policy that favours electric cooking [18,20]. The Government of Ecuador introduced the National Efficient Cooking Programme (NECP) with an aim to replace 3 million existing gas stoves with induction stoves [8,15]. The NECP sought to promote electricity as the primary source of cooking fuel at the national level in order to bring positive changes in the national energy matrix and reduce dependence on LPG. ...
Nepal has abundant hydropower potential and generation capacity under construction that should be able to meet the growing energy need of the country. Although access to electricity in the country is increasing, adoption and access to clean cooking facilities remains insignificant, as about 85% of the population still rely on solid fuels to meet their daily cooking needs. In this regard, energy generated from hydropower can play the dual role of providing access to modern energy as well as providing a clean cooking alternative that is clean and sustainable. Having realized this, the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has issued a white paper (point 73) for the ‘Electric Stove in Every House’ Programme, which is expected to encourage the use of electric cooking. This gives an opportunity not only to make use of Nepal’s hydropower resources but also to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuel. Our paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for introducing electricity in the cooking fuel mix in Nepal from the policy perspective. We draw upon the review of lessons learned from other countries including Ecuador, Bhutan and South Africa, to illustrate the potential pathways for the transition of fossil fuel-based products to electricity in Nepal. These countries have used a combination of approaches in including electricity in their cooking fuel mix, such as favourable electricity pricing, import tariff reductions in cooking appliances, and developing national policy and programmes to facilitate the integration of electricity in cooking fuel. These lessons from these countries are used to recommend pathways for moving from fossil fuel-based products to electricity in Nepal’s context.
... LPG schemes promoted in India include the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG Vitaran Yojana (RGGLVY) in 2009, Unnat Chulha Abhiyan in 2014, Pratyaksh Hastantrit Labh (PAHAL) in 2014 and Give it Up in 2015 [20]. Studies have suggested that schemes have disproportionately benefited the middle class, socially advantaged, and urban households [21][22][23] as the subsidies often did not reach the poor due to a lack of awareness, accessibility, and affordability [22][23][24]. However, little is known about longitudinal variations in LPG uptake nationally in India across different socioeconomic groups. ...
... LPG schemes promoted in India include the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG Vitaran Yojana (RGGLVY) in 2009, Unnat Chulha Abhiyan in 2014, Pratyaksh Hastantrit Labh (PAHAL) in 2014 and Give it Up in 2015 [20]. Studies have suggested that schemes have disproportionately benefited the middle class, socially advantaged, and urban households [21][22][23] as the subsidies often did not reach the poor due to a lack of awareness, accessibility, and affordability [22][23][24]. However, little is known about longitudinal variations in LPG uptake nationally in India across different socioeconomic groups. ...
Uptake of clean cooking fuels (CCF), such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), in place of traditional cooking fuels such as wood, charcoal, and kerosene can improve public health by reducing household air pollution exposures. Though studies have cross-sectionally examined socioeconomic determinants of cooking fuel adoption, little is known about socioeconomic disparities in CCF use over time. Data from the third (2005–06) and fourth (2015–16) rounds of the National Family Health Survey covering 109,041 and 601,509 households, respectively, were used to examine inequities in CCF use in India. While CCF use in India increased nationally from 25% in 2005–06 to 44% in 2015–16, the adoption of CCF varied widely across states and socio-economic groups. Approximately 2% of households in the poorest wealth quintile gained access to LPG during the study period, compared with an increase of 10% or more among households in the middle or richer wealth quintiles; the LPG access gap between the low (0.2%) and middle class (19.2%) was 19% in 2005–06 and nearly doubled to 35% (2.5% vs. 37.4%, respectively) in 2015–16. At the state level, there was a four-fold difference in the uptake of CCF over the two survey periods. The use of CCF increased by less than 10% in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, and Meghalaya as compared to the increases of at least 30% in Tamil Nadu (42%), undivided Andhra Pradesh (34%), and Kerala (30%). Further, in wealthier states (Delhi, Goa, Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and undivided Andhra Pradesh), CCF use increased by more than 20% among the poorest individuals compared with less than 1% among the poorest families in lower income states (Tripura, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar). To promote a more equitable clean energy transition, poorer and rural Indian households should be prioritized for CCF promotion programs.
... According to the energy ladder hypothesis, households transition from inefficient and dirty fuel sources (such as wood, agricultural residues, animal waste, and charcoal) to efficient and cleaner fuel sources (such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), solar, and electricity) as their income level rises [2]. Several studies categorize residential energy consumption into solid and non-solid fuels, in which they regard solid as dirty and low-efficiency and non-solid as clean and high-efficiency residential fuel sources, to examine households' fuel-switching behavior [57][58][59]. Many studies discuss the roles of clean energy in the context of renewable energy sources [60][61][62]. ...
... Although our results reveal a long-run association between the share of high-efficiency energy sources in residential energy consumption and remittance inflows in developing countries, this study has several limitations that call for a more comprehensive investigation in future research. First, this study investigated the energy transition dynamics in the residential sector, accounting for solid and non-solid fuels, where solid fuels are regarded as low-efficiency and non-solid fuels as high-efficiency residential energy sources [57][58][59]. Our analysis in this study, however, does not account for the roles of various fuel types within the solid and non-solid fuel categories. ...
The energy transition is crucial for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (affordable and clean energy). As remittances account for a significant share of household incomes in developing countries, they may be associated with the energy transition from low-efficiency residential fuels (e.g., coal and wood) to high-efficiency residential fuels (e.g., gas and electricity). This study examines the association between remittances and residential energy transition in developing countries by employing a pooled mean group autoregressive distributed lag (PMG-ARDL) model for 27 developing nations from 1995 to 2018. The results indicate that a 1% increase in remittances (ratio to GDP) is associated with a 0.24% increase in the share of high-efficiency energy sources in residential energy consumption in the long run.
... Whereas improved cookstove programmes have emphasised fuel economy, users have regarded versatility and the ability to cook quickly as more important (Gill 1987). Nor were improved cookstoves necessarily more efficient, nor were they always smokeless; indeed progress made in alleviating the burden of disease from household air pollution associated with burning solid fuels for cooking has been modest (Gill 1987, Smith and Sagar 2014, World Health Organization 2016. ...
... In spite of decades of efforts to make biomass fuel clean through advanced stoves, modest progress had been by 2014 (Smith and Sagar 2014). On the premise that improved cookstoves are likely vehicles for positive health impacts for those unable or unwilling to pay for fuel for clean cookstoves, engineers have been continuing to develop improved cookstoves. ...
Background: Traditional cookstoves that burn solid biomass are associated with inefficient burning, a high degree of household air pollution and high morbidity rates. A key barrier to the adoption of clean cookstoves has been the cost of fuels. Hence, a Thermo-Electric Generating (TEG) cookstove that used solid biomass fuels more efficiently and released less smoke was developed. The TEG cookstove also generates electricity to power small electric devices. Fifteen TEG cookstoves were distributed to villagers in the Indian state of Uttarakhand in 2019. Objective: We wanted to understand whether, after two years of distribution, TEG cookstoves were still used, what and where they were used for, their perceived impacts on health, and the barriers to their use. Methods used: We surveyed 10 of the 15 recipient households. We applied the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour and Behaviour Change Wheel frameworks to understand what the barriers to adoption were, and what could be done to surmount these. Results: All respondents reported lower smoke levels and most respondents reported that the TEG cookstoves required less fuelwood than their traditional cookstoves, but none had used them in the month prior to the survey. Discussion: For those whose TEG cookstoves were still usable and had not been made redundant by clean cookstoves, we found there to be physical opportunity barriers and psychological capability barriers. Physical opportunity barriers included a small inlet for fuel, limited versatility beyond cooking at low temperatures, and the availability of only one hob. To surmount these barriers, we recommend co-design to suit user needs and education emphasising visible benefits of avoided soot on kitchen walls, in addition to the health benefits.
... This work is motivated by concerns about health, deforestation, climate change, and women's labor. Air pollution from the incomplete combustion of biomass in hearths profoundly affects the morbidity and mortality of more than four million people a year (World Health Organization 2014), especially women and children who spend much time in proximity to cooking fires (Landrigan et al. 2018;Smith and Sagar 2014). The burning of millions of tons of biomass fuel is a source of greenhouse gases and contributor to black carbon in the atmosphere and climate change (e.g. ...
... This typology prioritizes traits that should be archaeologically visible, such as prepared surfaces and sides, removable or built hearth furniture, and fire portability. Cooks may use more than one of these hearth types to accomplish different cooking tasks, a practice known as "stove stacking" (Barnes et al. 1993;Smith and Sagar 2014). ...
A hearth is the location of an intentional fire, commonly fueled with organic matter such as wood, charcoal, crop waste, or dried animal dung (biomass, or biofuel). Hearths also implicate gender, regional ecologies, and complex, symbolically rich technologies. This article is about household cooking hearths—specifically, biomass hearths used with ceramic cooking vessels. Insights are drawn from international development projects, ethnoarchaeology, archaeology, and related fields to define types of hearths. We identify associations between hearth construction and other key attributes of archaeological relevance, including cooking vessel shape, food preparation methods, fuel choice, labor allocation, methods and materials of house construction, and use of indoor and outdoor spaces. Additionally, we discuss these associations based on our ethnoarchaeological study of development in contemporary Rajasthan, India. We argue that broadening the scope of ethnoarchaeology to consider international development efforts that promote change reveals the complicated ways that cooking hearths are embedded within households.
... Our work suggests the need to expand the policy to address consumption beyond an initial LPG connection and to increase the cooking energy access tier. Subsidy targeting is often cited as a means to improve the policy (Kar et al., 2019;Smith and Sagar, 2014). We agree and suggest that our findings imply that exploring incentive strategies to increase consumption beyond adoption, including increasing the size of the refill subsidy for BPL households, may be more effective strategies. ...
... However, the other BPL policies affect overall household poverty status through transfers, healthcare assistance, pensions, etc. Therefore, we use a two-part model to evaluate the impact of BPL eligibility on the decision regarding whether to purchase any LPG as well as the impact of the BPL eligibility on how much LPG to purchase given the existence of an LPG connection, a decision that was already being influenced by the universal subsidy for LPG, which was implemented in earlier years (Smith and Sagar, 2014). Using this two-part model, we thus examine the total effect of new BPL policies on the overall increase in LPG use per household. ...
In 2016, India introduced the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) policy, which offers below-the-poverty-line (BPL) households a free liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connection. Simultaneously, the National and State governments implemented numerous health, housing, and other programs also targeting BPL households. Using a difference-in-differences approach with a non-equivalent comparison group, we provide causal evidence of the total effect of BPL policies on the probability of obtaining an LPG connection, overall LPG consumption, opting for home delivery, and clean cooking access. Using a two-part model of LPG use, the total effect of the policies is a 7.9 and 8 percentage point increase (46.4% and 50.0% change) in the probability of an increase in any positive LPG use for BPL households but no change in the magnitude of LPG use among households with any positive LPG use. We calculate that the overall increase in LPG use due to BPL policies was 0.68 kg per household. We find no effect for home delivery or cooking energy access tier. Our work suggests the need to expand the policy to address consumption more effectively. Finally, this analysis advocates investigation into consumption incentives and the size of the refill subsidy beyond simply improved targeting of BPL households.
... In LPG studies from South Africa, Brazil, and Kenya, a clean fuel study from Ghana and Uganda, and India's CEEW report, fuel efficiency was taken into account to produce cost per fuel unit rather than cost per fuel weight [50,86,[97][98][99]. Efficiency also affects cost per meal metrics of affordability [100,101]. Affordability in terms of cost per unit (e.g., per unit energy, per capita, per month, etc.) was the most common metric (see Fig. 3, Panel B); however, it simplifies affordability because it excludes household income. Within per unit metrics, cost per unit of energy was the most common approach as it allowed researchers to compare different types of fuel (see Fig. 4). ...
... Metrics for affordability should reflect the spending habits of lowincome households if cost comparisons are to be used to induce behavior changes towards BLEEN fuels. Cost per household member or per meal may be more useful information for households when comparing stoves or fuels [81,89,90,100]. However, these metrics do not capture how often, or how large, a lump sum is necessary to purchase these fuels. ...
2.9 billion people lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. This review analyzes the literature on affordability as a barrier to adoption and consistent use of clean cooking stoves and fuels. We find diverse frameworks, definitions and metrics in use, and frequent discussions on stove price, fuel costs, microfinance, and smaller procurement quantities. We recommend that financing strategies to mitigate unaffordability be based on how low-income households actually earn, spend, and save their money, and that affordability frameworks be expanded to account for gender divides, rural/urban divides, and stove stacking behavior. Our review thus aims to reflect the nuances of a low-income household's ability to pay for clean fuels. Affordability must make sense within the lived experiences of the poor if clean cooking is to achieve universal access.
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... Coal is put into use as an energy source for heating and cooking in some parts of the world where coal has been mined such as the British Isles and China dated back to a millennium ago [3]. Wood, agricultural residues, and coal constitute the solid cooking fuels used by about 40 percent of humanity today [4][5]. Typically burned in simple cook stoves, these fuels produce smoke that is now understood to cause a large burden of disease [5]. ...
... Wood, agricultural residues, and coal constitute the solid cooking fuels used by about 40 percent of humanity today [4][5]. Typically burned in simple cook stoves, these fuels produce smoke that is now understood to cause a large burden of disease [5]. Indoor greenhouse gases generated as a result of wood fuel usage for cooking has always been detrimental to the lives and health of women, amounting to 3-4 million premature deaths annually and a wide range of illnesses in the developing world [1], According to WHO [6], it is estimated that developing countries with high mortality rate overall, indoor air pollution ranks fourth in terms of the risk factors that contribute to disease and death, out of which more than half of these deaths occur among children under five years of age. ...
Biomass briquettes can be considered as the best alternative energy source compared to wood fuel. Clean energy in households is a tool to improve human health, lower climate change impacts and save hundreds of millions of people, especially for women and children from toiling during daily fuel collection. To achieve a progressive response in sustainable development Goals, Clean and efficient household energy will improve health, gender equality, sustainable urban environments, and climate action and green recovery post COVID-19. The adoption of the energy from biomass briquettes would help Improve access and adoption of the life changing products to end users influencing their lives socially, economically and financially, improve sales and stability which will translate to more employment and more taxes for the government and improve the economy of Nigeria, achievement of NDC commitment of 20%-45% emission reduction, generally improve the standard of living and productivity of the end users and also safeguard the environment for future generation. It is therefore recommended that; Legislate policies prosecuting individuals and companies indiscriminately clogging trees for wood fuel and charcoal production binding ministry of forestry, Agriculture and environment with such task, Fund research in order to provide various sustainable raw materials for briquettes production with high calorific value and Provide forest guards with adequate resources and welfare to safeguard our green cover, wildlife and other natural resources.
... Marginalized communities, often due to economic constraints or restricted access, resort to unsustainable practices, further intensifying environmental degradation. In many regions, the lack of access to clean fuels for cooking leads families to rely on burning biomass, which not only contributes to deforestation but also results in significant black carbon emissions, a potent short-lived climate pollutant (Smith & Sagar, 2014 The intricate relationship between social inequalities and the intensification of the climate crisis reinforces the need for integrated solutions. Addressing one challenge in isolation risks perpetuating or even exacerbating the other. ...
This article investigates the nexus between climate change and social inequality, examining the implications of their interconnectedness. The goal was to understand how these two global challenges interact, influence, and exacerbate each other. Using a combination of literature review, policy analysis, and case studies, we dissected multidimensional impacts, policy responses, and recommendations for a just transition. The results underscored that vulnerable populations, predominantly in the Global South, bear the brunt of climate-related adversity, while social inequalities contribute to higher carbon footprints among the wealthy. Moreover, while some policy interventions, such as Costa Rica's Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme, are successful, others, such as France's fuel tax, highlight potential pitfalls when socio-economic considerations are overlooked. The broader implication of this study underscores the urgency of a holistic, equity-centered approach to addressing climate change, highlighting its crucial role in ensuring global sustainability and justice for future generations.
... Desde el punto de vista tecnológico, históricamente ha habido dos enfoques básicos para avanzar hacia el cocinado limpio, que se podrían resumir en "hacer lo asequible limpio", es decir, que la leña y el carbón vegetal, que son generalmente económicos, produzcan menos contaminación, o "hacer lo limpio asequible", es decir, que el gas y la electricidad y otras fuentes de bajas emisiones tengan un coste relativamente bajo para que sean asequibles a la mayor parte de la población. Durante cincuenta años se han llevado a cabo miles de proyectos siguiendo la primera estrategia, a través de lo que se denomina "cocinas mejoradas" (ICS, improved cookstoves), con resultados muy limitados (Smith y Sagar, 2014), lo que ha supuesto una enorme pérdida de tiempo y de recursos económicos. De hecho, se siguen financiando proyectos de este tipo, a pesar de que no cumplen las directrices de la OMS sobre contaminación del aire interior, y que en el mejor de los casos solo suponen un ahorro en el consumo de biomasa. ...
Resumen En 2015, las Naciones Unidas aprobaron el Objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) número 7 para garantizar el acceso universal a servicios energéticos asequibles, fiables y modernos para el año 2030. Sin embargo, los avances son lentos, y las previsiones indican que en muchos países no se alcanzará este objetivo, a menos que se realicen cambios sustanciales en el sector eléctrico, como el desarrollo de un Marco Integrado de Distribución, la planificación geoespacial integrada, la definición modelos de negocio, marcos regulatorios y planes financieros viables y sostenibles, y el cambio de visión sobre el cocinado moderno, con la promoción del cocinado con electricidad. Abstract In 2015, the United Nations approved the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7 to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030. However, progress is slow, and forecasts indicate that in many countries this objective will not be achieved unless substantial changes are made in the electricity sector, such as the development of an Integrated Distribution Framework, the integrated geospatial planning, the definition of viable and sustainable business models, regulatory frameworks and financial plans, and the change of vision on modern cooking, with the promotion of cooking with electricity. Palabras clave Acceso universal a la energía, electrificación, Modelo Integrado de Distribución, planificación geoespacial integrada, cocinado moderno, cocinado con electricidad. JEL classification Q47 y Q48
... In terms of physicochemical features, DESs and ILs are very similar, but their cost-efficient synthesis method and their ability to get easily biodegraded make them stand out as an interest to other alternatives to ILs (Zdanowicz et al., 2018). The majority of deep eutectic solvents are formed by combining an ammonium salt with a metal salt, capable of creating a mixture along with the quaternary ammonium salt's halide ion (Smith and Sagar, 2014). The charge delocalization between the halide ion and the hydrogen-donor moiety is blamed for the eutectic mixture's lower melting point (Wagle et al., 2014). ...
Relationship Between Microbes and Environment for Sustainable Ecosystem Services, Volume Two: Microbial Mitigation of Waste for Sustainable Ecosystem Services promotes advances in sustainable solutions, value-added products, and fundamental research in microbes and the environment. Topics include advanced and recent discoveries in the use of microbes for sustainable development. Volume Two describes the successful application of microbes and their derivatives for waste management of potentially toxic and relatively novel compounds. This proposed book will be helpful to environmental scientists, experts and policymakers working in the field of microbe- based mitigation of environmental wastes. The book provides reference information ranging from the description of various microbial applications for the sustainability in different aspects of food, energy, environment industry and social development.
... Public health interventions are increasingly trying to minimize the use of multiple cooking technologies (Lambe et al., 2015;Sambandam et al., 2015;Smith & Sagar, 2014;Teune et al., 2020), largely because full abandonment of polluting cooking technology appears necessary to achieve sufficient reductions in HAP exposure to improve health (Burnett et al., 2014;Checkley et al., 2021;Mortimer et al., 2017). Yet stove and fuel "stacking", i.e., the use of traditional cooking devices alongside improved and clean cooking options (Ruiz-Mercado & Masera, 2015), provides a variety of advantages to households and therefore remains common in LMICs (Choumert-Nkolo et al., 2019;Dickinson et al., 2019;Kapsalyamova et al., 2021;Price et al., 2021;Shankar et al., 2020). ...
Overcoming cooking fuel “stacking” is a major challenge impeding transitions to clean cooking in low- and middle-income countries. Though clean fuels are increasingly available in these countries' urban centers, continued use of polluting technology reinforces energy poverty, due to time costs associated with fuel collection, the household air pollution generated, and the contribution of the latter to dangerous levels of ambient air pollution. While there is much evidence of the association between income and clean fuel use, the impacts of policy instruments that alter fuel prices have been underexplored. We conducted a double-bounded contingent valuation experiment with 360 households who use firewood and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in peri-urban areas of Kathmandu Valley, to elicit respondents' strength of preference regarding their primary cooking fuels. We examine the determinants of cooking fuel stacking, the relationship between fuel stacking behavior and preferences for cooking fuel, and calculate willingness to pay (WTP) for households' primary fuels. We find that stacking is associated with household demographic variables and the time burden of firewood collection; meanwhile, wealthier households, those having more empowered women, and those affected by the 2015 trade blockade in Nepal use more LPG. Fuel stacking among primary LPG users is negatively related to demand for LPG. Among primary LPG users, WTP for a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder ranges between 1267 and 1496 NPR (11–15 USD, or between 3.5 and 4.9 NPR/MJ of useful energy), but WTP for 1 MJ of useful cooking energy is considerably higher due to the highly price inelastic demand for firewood (42–145 NPR/MJ, 0.36–1.25 USD/MJ). Our findings have implications for the pricing of clean fuels in urban Nepal, as they indicate an asymmetric response around price changes for LPG and firewood.
... Scholars have engaged with the effects of IAP, the need for energy transitions, and the design of energy mixes [6]. However, there is a lack of in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the policy design and implementation aspects of public policy and the digitalization strategies and practices that have emerged in the last decade to facilitate sustainable energy transitions. ...
This article examines the extent to which digitalized welfare harmonizes the socio-economic goals of economic reform and low-carbon energy transitions in an emerging democratic context. It analyzes digitalized welfare’s effectiveness in facilitating sustainable energy transitions through market mechanisms using a centralized approach to welfare delivery. Using narrative analysis, this article describes the shift to the direct benefits transfers regime from a regime of indirect subsidies for cooking gas in India. It describes the design aspects of various government programs through which target populations are socially constructed, as part of the policy of cooking gas cash transfers in India. Further, it analyzes the role of the practices of communicative governance and digitalization in calibrating the key policy characteristics to strengthen policy legitimacy. The insights from this article contribute to the emerging body of the theory and practice of digitalized welfare for sustainable energy transitions.
... This reflects a growing interest in clean cooking, driven by emerging evidence about its impacts and the inclusion of energy in the SDGs 1 . There has been a recent move away from ICS research in favour of LPG and electric cooking, mirroring a sector-wide shift towards 'making the clean available' 22 . ...
Globally, 2.8 billion people cook with biomass fuels, resulting in devastating health and environmental consequences. Efforts to transition households to cooking with clean fuels are hampered by ‘fuel stacking’, the reliance on multiple fuels and stoves. Consequently, there have been few interventions that have realized the full potential of clean cooking. Here we conduct a structured literature review (N = 100) to identify drivers of fuel stacking and specify them according to a psychological model of behaviour, the Capability–Opportunity–Motivation (COM-B) model. We create a taxonomy of stacking and find that the Physical Opportunity domain accounted for 82% of drivers. Our results have important implications for intervention design as they suggest improving opportunity is the most effective pathway to adoption of cleaner fuels. The findings are used to derive recommendations about how policymakers and practitioners can proactively address drivers of stacking to foster adoption of clean cooking stoves and fuels. Realizing the full potential of clean cooking transitions requires an understanding of fuel stacking in which multiple fuels and stoves are used. Towards this end, Perros et al. analyse the literature on clean cooking interventions through a behavioural model and identify underlying drivers of stacking.
... At the same time, from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, the National Program on Improved Cookstoves (NPIC) was launched in India to enhance biomass burning efficiency in the kitchen. Since 2000, a series of programs aiming at replacing biomass use (Smith and Sagar 2014). However, in this study, we observed period RRs in China decreased faster than in India, indicating the divergence between China and India in the effectiveness of reducing HAP. ...
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) caused by household air pollution (HAP) have sparked widespread concern globally in the recent decade. Meanwhile, increased ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality has been the leading cause of worldwide CVD deaths. Both China and India experienced a high IHD burden and high exposure to HAP. The present study aimed to estimate and compare the long-term trends of HAP-attributable IHD mortality in the two countries. The data of this study were extracted from the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) Study 2019. The age-period-cohort (APC) analysis was utilized to estimate the independent trends of the age, period, and cohort effects from 1990 to 2019. The age-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs) of HAP-attributable IHD have fallen faster in China than in India for both sexes. The local drift and net drift values were < 0 for all age groups in both countries. The age effects in both countries and sexes increased with time, suggesting age is a risk factor for IHD; conversely, period and cohort effects in China demonstrated a faster decline in both genders than in India. It indicated that China has been more successful than India in decreasing HAP-attributable IHD mortality.
... High levels of HAP include health-damaging pollutants such as fine particles and carbon monoxide and contribute to about 4-6% of the burden of disease in India (Smith, 2000). Since women and children spend most time at home, they are the most adversely affected (Kankaria et al., 2014;Smith & Sagar, 2014). Mitigating the ill-effects of HAP is crucial not just to achieve targets of improved health (SDG 3) but also gender equality (SDG 5). ...
... They found that the use of a low smoke stove results in reduced indoor air pollution and an increase in respiratory health for both women and children. Smith and Sagar [23] considered the need and ways to include gas and electric cooking to avoid pollution caused by solid fuel-fired cooking stoves in India. They found that the ministry of health, petroleum, and power ministries engagement can help save the Indian population trapped in the stove trap. ...
Air pollution has a serious impact on the health of human beings and is a major cause of death worldwide every year. Out of the many sources of air pollution, the smoke generated from household combustion devices is very dangerous due to the incomplete combustion of fuel. Women from rural areas suffer a lot due to this harmful smoke. Diseases like cancer, throat, and lung infection occur in adults and children due to inhalation of this smoke. The traditional chulha used by rural women is operated by using cow dung, straw, and wood, and the air is blown manually by using small metallic pipes. This paper presents the design and development of an innovative stove to maximize flame temperature and minimize air pollution to overcome the health-related issues of rural women. A smokeless stove is presented, in which wood, straw, and cow dung are taken as primary fuel, and superheated steam as a secondary oxidizer for its operation. In this stove, a forced draft is created by the provision of a small fan, which is operated by solar power thus eliminating the need of creating a forced draft manually by the cook which makes this innovative stove superior to the traditional chulha. Owing to the provision of superheated steam, the flame temperature as well as the burning efficiency increases. The cooking time is reduced due to higher flame temperature as compared to the liquefied petroleum gas stove. The main objective of this work is to minimize air pollution and provide a smoke-free environment to the people using such * Corresponding Author. devices as this innovative stove offers complete combustion of fuel. The flame temperature of the designed stove ranges from 595 • C to 700 • C and its thermal efficiency is 10-17% higher than that of the traditional chulha. The design of this stove is unique, and its maintenance cost is also much less.
... Empirical evidence indicates that one of the major concerns is the threat to the physical health of women and girls in India, who primarily engage in the cooking of food that raises significant air pollution causing severe respiratory diseases among the rural households (Smith & Sagar, 2014;Debbi, Elisa, Nigel, Dan, & Eva, 2014;Schilmann et al., 2019). According to the World Health Organization (2002) report, use of solid fuels for cooking within enclosed spaces causes indoor air pollution, which is the 4th leading health risk in developing countries with high mortality due to increased incidences of diseases such as acute upper and lower respiratory illnesses, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and tuberculosis. ...
This paper investigates the factors affecting access to clean cooking fuel among rural Indian households during the COVID-19 outbreak, based on World Bank's rural impact survey, covering 2731 rural households. Our analysis shows a significant decline in access to clean fuel among rural households from 35% in 2018 i.e. before COVID-19 to 19.7% during the COVID-19 pandemic. This implies that in order to meet their cooking needs, many rural households have switched from conventional fuels, which have numerous health and environmental concerns. The association between states and socio-demographic profiles of rural households with access to sources of cooking fuel shows a significant difference. The analysis results further indicate that socio-demographic characteristics and asset holdings of the rural households are the key factors that determine access to clean cooking fuel during COVID-19. Among the socio-demographic variables, age, gender, family size, social category, and income level are estimated to be significant factors that affect the access to clean fuel for cooking. Similarly, ownership of assets such as exclusive kitchen room, refrigerator, pressure cooker, television, and furniture are significant factors affecting access to clean cooking fuel among Indian rural households. Additionally, this study provides policy insights on developing mechanisms to ensure that rural households have an access to clean cooking fuel during crisis situations such as COVID-19.
... They found that using this system, a full Indian meal can be prepared. Smith and Sagar et al. [28] studied the need and ways to include gas and electric cooking to avoid solid cook fuel pollution of India stove. They found that the health, petroleum and power ministries engagement can help save the Indian population trapped in the stove trap. ...
Nowadays, 40-50% of families worldwide are using traditional stoves for cooking purposes. These stoves are operated by using cow dung, straw and wood where wind pressure is generated manually by using small metallic pipes. To overcome this difficulty, we have designed and developed an innovative stove which epitomizes an initiative toward minimizing air pollution and health-related issues of rural women. In this work, a smokeless stove is presented where primary fuel and secondary fuel are taken for its operation. Wood, straw or cow dung is taken as primary fuel and superheated steam as secondary fuel. In this stove, forced draft is used by the provision of a small fan, which is operated by solar power. So, there is no need for creating forced draft by the cook himself or herself, which makes this innovative stove superior over the traditional stove. Due to the provision of superheated steam, the calorific value of primary fuel increases, and as a result, the burning efficiency as well as the flame temperature increases. It is possible to cook food with very less time due to its higher flame temperature as compared to the LPG stove. The design of this stove is unique, and its maintenance cost is very less. The main objective of this work is to minimize air pollution and provide a better environment for rural women for their cooking purpose with reduction in cost.
... Traditional cooking fuels, such as firewood, crop residues, or cow dung, and traditional cookstoves emit carbon dioxide (CO2), respirable particles, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO; N2O), and sulfur (S) that cause air pollution (Bruce et al. 2015;Kandpal et al. 1995;Smith and Sagar 2014). Air pollution is harmful to the environment (Singh et al. 2017) and has adverse health effects for children and adults, such as respiratory illnesses (Duflo et al. 2008) and even infant mortality (Imelda 2020). ...
While the health and environmental benefits of adopting clean cooking fuel are widely documented in the literature, the immediate and direct benefit-women's time-saving for fuel collection/preparation and cooking-has received little or no attention. Using panel data from six energy-poor Indian states involving about 9,000 households, we test whether liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) adoption enhances women's welfare by reducing fuel collection/preparation and cooking time and improving the overall cooking experience through a convenient and efficient cooking arrangement. We also explore the association between women's participation in decision-making and LPG adoption and refill. The findings reveal that LPG adopters save time by collecting firewood less frequently and preparing fewer pieces of dung cake than non-adopters. Additionally, LPG adopters save 15 minutes of cooking time per day than non-adopters Finally, LPG adoption makes the cooking experience more convenient and simpler than traditional cooking fuel. Women's sole or joint decision-making power is positively correlated with LPG adoption and refilling LPG cylinders. These findings imply that the true social benefit of clean cooking fuel adoption is much greater than the welfare gain accrued through greenhouse gas mitigation and health benefits from cleaner air. However, these positive externalities are less likely to be internalized in fuel choice decisions in households where women do not participate in important household decisions making.
... Further, it does not refer to the quality of such cooking systems, which are ranked by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) across 'tiers' where the quality increases on a scale of 0-5, judged by a variety of performance criteria covering fuel efficiency, emissions, indoor emissions and safety, with Tier 5 being the best performing [5]. In reality, there is a clear differentiation between more "efficient" cooking (e.g. through the burning of solid fuels in improved cookstoves, which are affected by end-user practices and fuel moisture content) and "clean" cooking [6][7][8]. The latter solutions are so defined because they are constantly clean at point of use, independent of users' cooking behaviour, and deliver health benefits through reduced exposure to damaging pollutants under daily use in the field [6,9]. ...
Framed by the United Nation's 'Clean Energy Challenge' to achieve universal energy access for all (SDG7) for the world's 82 million forcibly displaced persons, we focus on the role of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in delivering clean cooking solutions for refugees and host communities in resource-poor countries. Notwithstanding scepticism towards LPG among the majority of Western donors, we summarise evidence to indicate the latent market demand for LPG among refugees, as a cleaner, safer and lower-carbon technology option compared to the baseline scenario in most circumstances. Further, we argue that LPG offers a culturally appropriate and in many cases commercially viable solution in low-income hosting contexts, including rural areas, where host governments promote LPG in national energy access policy and planning. To this end, we argue the case for a Global LPG Market Creation Fund for displaced populations and nearby host communities, to kick-start investment in commercially oriented business models.
... High levels of HAP include health-damaging pollutants such as fine particles and carbon monoxide and contribute to about 4-6% of the burden of disease in India (Smith, 2000). Since women and children spend most time at home, they are the most adversely affected (Kankaria et al., 2014;Smith & Sagar, 2014). Mitigating the ill-effects of HAP is crucial not just to achieve targets of improved health (SDG 3) but also gender equality (SDG 5). ...
Reducing air pollutionAir pollution, especially from householdHouseholds emissions, is considered a major policy target to reap the triple benefitsTriple benefits of reduced household air pollutionAir pollution, reduction in forestForest dependence and reduced emission of carbon. Over a decade and a half, the Indian government has been persuading ruralRuralhouseholdsHouseholds to adopt either better stoves or cleaner fuelsCleaner fuels to increase social welfare. There has been a strong policy push to incentivize ruralRural poor to adopt liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) throughLPG various schemes. This chapter examines the factors impacting on refilling of LPG cylinders across districts of major states in India. We find that ruralRural income enhancing schemes have a positive influence on LPGLPG refill. Female literacy has a positive impact but female workforceFemale workforce participation has a negative impact on refills. We also find that areas of very dense forestsForest and scrub forests have a positive impact on refills while open forestForest has a negative impact. Increased development expenditure would provide win–win solutions for reducing poverty, increasing women’s empowermentEmpowerment and higher adoption of cleaner fuelsCleaner fuels.
... High levels of HAP include health-damaging pollutants such as fine particles and carbon monoxide and contribute to about 4-6% of the burden of disease in India (Smith, 2000). Since women and children spend most time at home, they are the most adversely affected (Kankaria et al., 2014;Smith & Sagar, 2014). Mitigating the ill-effects of HAP is crucial not just to achieve targets of improved health (SDG 3) but also gender equality (SDG 5). ...
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This open access book documents myriads of ways community-based climate change adaptation and resilience programs are being implemented in South Asian countries. The narrative style of writing in this volume makes it accessible to a diverse audience from academics and researchers to practitioners in various governmental, non-governmental and international agencies. At a time when climate change presents humanity with a gloomy future, the stories of innovation, creativity, grassroots engagement and locally applicable solutions highlighted in this book provides insights into hopeful ways of approaching climate solutions. South Asian countries have been dealing with the impact of climate change for decades and thus offer valuable learning opportunities for developing countries within and beyond the region as well as many western countries that are confronting the wrath of climate induced natural disasters more recently.
... In the same vein, Lokonon (2020) also emphasizes the relevance of enhancing access to credit to facilitate CCFT in Benin. On the other hand, linking technological innovation to CCFT in the case of India, Smith and Sagar (2014) concluded that improving technology can influence the switch from the utilization of solid cooking stoves to modern gas and electric cooking stoves. Besides, such technological innovations concerning the energy sector were also referred to as a mechanism of increasing the availability of cooking fuels in India. ...
Most of the Sub-Saharan African countries are heavily reliant on unclean cooking fuels and have been facing difficulty in overcoming this monotonic cooking fuel dependency. However, considering the environmental and human health concerns regarding the consumption of dirty cooking fuels, it has become imperative for these nations to identify the factors that can enable them to undergo the transition from the use of unclean to clean cooking fuels. Against this backdrop, this current study aims to assess whether improving the level of energy efficiency can enhance access to clean cooking fuel and technology across selected developing nations from Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the first study that separately estimates the effects of gains in energy use efficiency on clean cooking fuel and technology access for the 14 low-income, 16 lower-middle-income, and 4 upper-middle-income Sub-Saharan African countries. The outcomes from this study are anticipated to help the Sub-Saharan African nations and other similar developing nations across the globe to partially attain the clean energy transition targets mentioned under the Sustainable Development Goals agenda of the United Nations. Overall, the results from the econometric analysis indicate that energy efficiency gains initially cannot enhance access to clean cooking fuel and technology but beyond certain energy efficiency thresholds it can be effective in enhancing the access levels. Besides, the predicted energy efficiency thresholds are observed to vary across the Sub-Saharan African nations belonging to different income groups and also across these nations having different levels of clean cooking fuel and technology access for the respective population. However, in all cases, the estimated energy efficiency threshold levels are found to be greater than the mean level of energy use efficiency of these countries. Moreover, results also certify that economic growth, environmental pollution, financial globalization, financial development, and women empowerment are some of the other major drivers of clean cooking fuel transition across Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the impacts of these macroeconomic variables are seen to be relatively larger for the comparatively richer and less unclean cooking fuel-dependent nations. Accordingly, this study recommends that associated governments implement policies that can expedite the rate of energy efficiency improvement, speed up the economic growth rate, restrict the influx of unclean foreign direct investments, develop the financial sector, and ensure greater empowerment of women across this region.
... Fuel or stove stacking was thus a norm not an aberration or failure of a particular stove or fuel. Despite the growing acceptance of the concept of fuel stacking (Banerjee et al., 2016;Han et al., 2018;Smith & Sagar, 2014) and scattered references in the literature to households using multiple stoves even before the introduction of new technologies (Piedrahita, 2016), the awareness of the normalcy of this behavior does not seem to have been fully absorbed across the industry. This has led to disappointment among practitioners when even the successful, long-term adoption of modern stoves does not lead to the complete abandonment of traditional stoves (Burwen & Levine, 2012;Gitau et al., 2019). ...
Despite much research on the topic, persistent difficulties remain around the adoption of modern cookstoves. This study aims to increase understandings of the complex decision making processes behind stove and fuel choice and identify barriers and opportunities to facilitate transitions to improved cookstoves. Taking an inductive, explorative approach to gather rich detail, in-depth interviews were conducted with 75 urban and rural people in Kenya which were then analyzed using adaptive theory to determine key issues. The study found the better off urban respondents all engaged a cookstove stacking approach, but contrary to previous understandings, this was less about an unwillingness to give up a traditional stove than it was a result of only being able to afford modern fuels for some of their cooking needs. They would then ration out the use of a modern stove to the meals when the perceived benefits of the stove were most in need, such as speed during busy periods, and use the traditional stove to fill in the gaps more cheaply. People in the poorer, rural group were very optimistic about the process of moving to modern stoves and fuels but completely unable to afford them. These findings indicate that price rather than preference is the dominant factor to the purchase and continued use of modern cookstoves. The paper frames these results to reemphasize the need to address price barriers of modern cookstoves, through subsidization, to facilitate increased adoption rates among the poorest users.
... HAP is a pressing public health crisis that warrants unceasing attention. Cleaner cooking systems such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) need to supplant traditional cookstoves [11][12][13]. Prior research has shown that factors pertaining to affordability, accessibility, and awareness impact LPG adoption in rural poor communities of India [12,14,15]. Multiple studies have also documented that behavior change strategies have significantly contributed to LPG uptake [12,15,16]. ...
Adoption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is the primary policy approach in India to transition rural poor communities toward clean cooking behavior. Prior clean cooking studies show that affordability, accessibility, and awareness impact LPG adoption in India. There is scarce research that explores the association of personal networks of community members in their LPG adoption. In this cross-sectional study, we use standard egocentric personal network analyses and multivariate logistic regression models to examine the association of structure and composition of personal networks with LPG adoption in poor communities. Our results show that higher proportions of peers owning LPG are associated with higher likelihood of LPG ownership in the respondents (OR = 41.30, 95% confidence interval: 16.86-101.20, p = 0.00). This study on personal network characteristics in clean cooking research offers a germane foundation for further large scale personal network studies on clean cooking adoption in poor communities.
... Both GOI and not-for-profit organizations have over the years devoted energy and resources to the development of better solid fuel (dung, crop residues, wood)-burning stoves that are marked by a more energy-efficient burning of biomass, contributing to less cooking time (Smith & Sagar, 2014). These improved cookstoves are engineered for a superior performance and smoke removal with the help of chimneys resulting in lower household pollution levels, thus reducing both the incidence of harmful impacts on health and the time spent collecting fuel (Khandelwal et al., 2017). ...
... Despite the fact that advanced solid fuel cookstoves can reduce air pollutant emissions and the associated air pollution exposures, however, emissions from this type of cookstoves are often not reduced down to levels achievable by nonsolid fuels, such as LPG. In addition, PM 2.5 exposure-outcome associations are highly supralinear where health impacts are only substantially reduced at the lowest exposures (Smith & Sagar, 2014). Therefore, we recommend to promote clean household energy programs in low-income and middle-income countries to substantially reduce air pollution exposure and the associated health impacts. ...
Abstract Global solid biofuel stove emissions strongly impact air quality, climate change, and human health. However, investigations of the impacts of global solid biofuel stove emissions on human health associated with PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) and ozone (O3) are limited. Here, we quantify the impacts of global solid biofuel stove emissions on ambient PM2.5 and O3 air quality and the associated human health effects for the year 2010, using the Community Atmosphere Model coupled with Chemistry version 5.3. Annual mean surface PM2.5 concentrations from global solid biofuel stove emissions averaged over 2006–2010 are up to 23.1 μg m−3, with large impacts found over China, India, sub‐Saharan Africa, and eastern and central Europe. For surface O3 impacts, we find that global solid biofuel stove emissions lead to increases in surface O3 concentrations by up to 5.7 ppbv for China, India, and sub‐Saharan Africa, and negligible impacts or reductions of up to 0.5 ppbv for the US, Europe, and parts of South America. Global solid biofuel stove emissions for the year 2010 contribute to 382,000 [95% confidence interval (95CI): 349,000–409,000] annual premature deaths associated with PM2.5 and O3 exposure, with the corresponding years of life lost as 8.10 million years (95CI: 7.38–8.70 million years). Our study highlights air quality and human health benefits of mitigating emissions from the global solid biofuel stove sector, especially over populous regions of low‐income and middle‐income countries, through promoting clean household energy programs for the residential energy supply.
... While clean energy offers avenues to advance economic, environmental and social outcomes (Rosenthal et al., 2018), there remain inequities as to its availability and access (Sovacool et al., 2017). When new forms of energy is provided, there are positive educational outcomes, gender improvements (Smith and Sagar, 2014), income-generating prospects (Chakravorty et al., 2014) and advancing overall living standards of rural communities (Cabraal et al., 2005;Heltberg, 2004). Therefore, energy is an intertwined to socio-economic and an environmental concern (United Nations Statistics Division, 2018). ...
Multiple fuel use, incorporated within the concept of fuel stacking is prevalent in households at the beginning and midway in their ascension up the energy ladder. However, households cannot fully let go of their traditional energy sources presenting inherent policy complexities and contradictions within energy transition theories. Empirical insights into the determinants of clean energy transitions are presented that highlight the need to recognise both fuel switching and stacking occurs in many rural households. It focuses on rural communities in India and illuminates policy dilemmas. The study reveals that fuel stacking is likely to remain a key part of the socio-cultural energy tradition that will impact progress towards low carbon and a cleaner energy transition. We therefore argue targeted policy interventions, multi-stakeholder collaboration and strong energy governance is needed to incorporate socio-cultural traditions particularly linked to cooking. This suggests new energy policy that must offer flexibility in order to achieve the twin goals of universal energy access and decarbonising energy systems.
Community kitchen tandoor (CKT) is a clay-based hollow cylindrical device commonly used in South Asian and Middle Eastern countries for baking flatbreads and cooking meat. These CKTs, generally fuelled by charcoal or wood, contribute significantly to the pollution loads in ambient air along with occupational exposure hazards. CKTs, being a part of the informal sector, lack emissions and safety guidelines. This study surveys 139 restaurants in CKT hotspots of New Delhi, India, to understand tandoor design and operational parameters and to assess PM2.5 and CO exposure concentrations at representative field restaurants. PM2.5 and CO exposure concentrations from traditional CKT was found to be several-folds higher than safe indoor air quality levels. Further, the traditional CKT was evaluated for different improved fuels (like briquettes and pellets) in the laboratory for PM2.5 and CO microenvironment concentrations. It was found that the fuel improvements in traditional CKT could not improve microenvironment concentrations to the desired levels; hence, an automated pellet-fed forced-draft improved tandoor with an improved combustion chamber design is demonstrated. The results of the laboratory trial of improved tandoor were compared with traditional tandoor (using pellets) and have shown 84% and 94% reductions in PM2.5 and CO concentrations, respectively, indicating significant benefits to the environment and health. We recommend implementing such improved CKT, on a large scale, combined with other identified control options, as a potential candidate under air pollution mitigation strategies in cities’ action plans under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
Graphical abstract
In Karachi, around 18,000 tons of solid wastes are generated each day, of which 40% can be turned into Organic Refuse-derived Fuel (ORDF). It can be considered the best alternative energy source for domestic and commercial sector due to lowering greenhouse gases emissions and promoting regional and social progress by making full use of inexpensive and abundant organic waste. This issue will not only promote the motto of reducing, reusing, and recycling waste materials for maximum benefit, but it will also reduce the transportation load of civic agencies as well as their expenses, including a reduction in the use of landfill sites and progressive response in sustainable development. Clean and efficient household energy will improve health, gender equality, sustainable urban environments, climate action, and green recovery post-COVID-19. ORDF would be a life-changing product for end-users, influencing their social, economic, and financial lives, increasing sales and stability, resulting in more jobs and taxes for the government, and improving Pakistan's economy.
Bottled gas smart metering is among the strategic innovations which have transformed the energy sector in Africa. Research has proved that using this measuring device on bottled gas (liquefied petroleum gas) increases access to clean cooking among low-income households. Smart metering technology cuts down the initial investment costs and the running costs which are the major barriers to the utilization of LP gas. Apart from scaling up the adoption of modern1 clean cooking fuels, the diffusion of smart metering innovation offers various technological opportunities which can help to promote economic growth; but it is also associated with several technological challenges which may adversely affect economic progress.
Clean cooking solution for rural Indian households that largely rely on biomass requires a multipronged approach. The Government Launched Ujjwala scheme to reach out to 50 millions households with LPG is one of the largest clean energy Access programme to augment LPG uses especially in rural and remote areas. Delivering LPG requires setting up a massive additional supply infrastructure, recruitment of many more LPG distributors etc. At the same time, India nears universal electrification by 2019 through Saubhagaya scheme. This open up possibility of using electricity as clean cooking energy, which is at a nascent stage in policy discourse. India’s LPG import dependence and its price volatility further make electricity more viable and desirable. In any case, supplying energy through pipelines, cylinders and trucks is energy inefficient compared to sending it through wires. We report on a pilot experiment to test the potential of electricity in providing a viable option for clean cooking. The study explores the practicality of cooking with induction cooktop in rural and peri-urban areas.
The most abundant bioresource is lignocellulosic biomass (LCB), which has a worldwide production of up to 1.3 billion tonnes per annum. When lignocellulosic biomass is hydrolyzed, it creates organic acids, phenols, and aldehydes, as well as reducing sugars, particularly useful in the making of biofuels like biogas and bioethanol. Major proportions of lignocellulosic biomass are made up of polymers derived from biological systems including, lignin, and cellulose that are strongly bounded together with the hydrogen and covalent bonds to form a tenacious arrangement. Lignin's presence makes the polymeric arrangement particularly unsusceptible to digestion, preventing the breakdown of cellulose and hemicellulose, which makes isolating the individual bio-polymeric components difficult. The aim of this study is to go through the many pretreatment procedures that are presently used and how they are used to isolate high-value bio-polymeric components. This study focuses on to cover the benefits and drawbacks of various pretreatment methods, as well as the function of several crucial elements that are likely to have a substantial impact.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) as a long-term strategy to tackle the air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner, with targets to achieve 20-30% reduction in PM2.5/10 concentrations by 2024, keeping 2017 as the base year. Under NCAP, 124 non-attainment cities have been identified across the country based on the air quality data from 2014-2018. These cities do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and require focused attention on multiple
fronts to deal with the rising air pollution. In the state of Gujarat, the cities Ahmedabad, Surat, and Vadodara were identified as non-attainment cities. As per the NCAP targets, the cities that don’t meet the NAAQS standards would have to develop a city-specific clean air action plan detailing the proposed interventions to reduce air pollution emissions from the identified sources in a timebound manner which will serve as a strategy document.
Traditional discussions of the relationships between energy, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and human development fail to expose within country energy and CO2 emissions inequality. This work seeks to elucidate these inequalities in India and then investigate the consequential impacts on welfare and CO2 emissions of India's transition away from energy poverty. The study uses the India Human Development Survey and the EORA database to generate household Human Development Index scores, consumption and CO2 emissions distributions for India in both 2005 and 2012. Results suggest that addressing pressing welfare issues connected to energy use in India, such as indoor air pollution from solid fuels, can be aided by a transition to modern energy carriers, with little consequential increase in CO2 emissions. The richest 10 % of Indians only emitted 20 % more emissions from direct primary energy use than the poorest 10 % in 2012 (excluding direct emissions from transport). However, the wealth creation needed to sustain a modern energy transition will inevitably coincide with increased consumption, consumption which is supported by carbon intensive electricity and materials and represents the fastest growth area for CO2 emissions as incomes rise. The richest 10 % of Indians emitted five times more emissions from indirect energy use than the poorest 10 % in 2012. Addressing these challenges at the same time requires a coherent strategy that targets energy poverty and wealth creation in the poorest deciles, while reducing the emissions intensity of the sectors – notably transportation – of the Indian and global economies supporting increasing household consumption.
We conducted indoor air quality (IAQ) measurements during a multiyear cookstove randomized control trial in two rural areas in northern and southern India. A total of 1205 days of kitchen PM2.5 were measured in control and intervention households during six ∼3 month long measurement periods across two study locations. Stoves used included traditional solid fuel (TSF), improved biomass, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) models. Intent-to-treat analysis indicates that the intervention reduced average 24 h PM2.5 and black carbon in only one of the two follow-up measurement periods in both areas, suggesting mixed effectiveness. Average PM2.5 levels were ∼50% lower in households with LPG (for exclusive LPG use: >75% lower) than in those without LPG. PM2.5 was 66% lower in households making exclusive use of an improved chimney stove versus a traditional chimney stove and TSF-exclusive kitchens with a built-in chimney had ∼60% lower PM2.5 than those without a chimney, indicating that kitchen ventilation can be as important as the stove technology in improving IAQ. Diurnal trends in real-time PM2.5 indicate that kitchen chimneys were especially effective at reducing peak concentrations, which leads to decreases in daily PM2.5 in these households. Our data demonstrate a clear hierarchy of IAQ improvement in real world, "stove-stacking" households, driven by different stove technologies and kitchen characteristics.
Numerous studies are available in the academic literature that investigates the customer perception under different contexts. In the present research the researcher tries to investigate the customer perception towards the Indian Government-sponsored social programme from the slum dwellers’ prospective. The author believes that the customer perception towards the government-lead liquefied petroleum gas intervention programme is influenced by multiple functional factors. The functional factors include both process or delivery variables and the outcome factors. In order to test the hypothesis, machine learning binary classifiers like logit, support vector machine, linear discriminant analysis, quadratic discriminant analysis and artificial neural network models are adopted. The binary classifier model efficiencies are analysed with multiple performance measurement parameters like accuracy rate, error rate, F-score, precision, kappa coefficient, Matthews correlation coefficient and area under receiver operating characteristic. While evaluating between the degree of accuracy between actual and predicted cases, the model efficiency results indicate a better predictive power of the classifier models. In relative performance of classifier models, artificial neural network outperformed the other models adopted in the empirical research.
In 2019, there were 759 million people globally without access to electricity and 2.6 billion people lacked access to clean cooking. Cooking with electricity could contribute to achieving universal access to energy by 2030. This paper uses geospatially-based techniques—a computer model named REM, for Reference Electrification Model—to show the impact of integrating electric cooking into electrification planning. Three household scenarios were analyzed: one for providing basic electricity access with no electric cooking; another for cooking with electricity; and the third for cooking half of the meals with electricity and half with another fuel, with a clean stacking process. Results of the application of REM to the three scenarios were obtained for the Nyagatare District, Rwanda. The case study showed that electric cooking substantially changes the mix of technologies and the total cost of the least-cost electrification plan. It also showed that electric cooking can be cost competitive compared to LPG and charcoal in grid-connected households and can reduce greenhouse emissions. Stacking with energy-efficient electric appliances provides most of the benefits of full electric cooking at a lower cost and is a pathway worthy of further consideration.
Efficient use of energy is the main concern during the implementation of technology migration processes because several factors must be taken into account for this purpose. In this paper, the migration process from cookers based on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to electric induction stoves is presented. To accomplish this study, several tests have been performed in three kinds of pots made from different materials: stainless steel, enameled cast iron, and aluminum. The purpose of these tests is to see how different materials for cookware would be affected by introducing them into a salt spray chamber. Indeed, the tests try to reach similar conditions that cooking with salt. The achieved results try to emphasize the selection, in terms of corrosion, of the best material for suitable cookware production applied in induction stoves. The methods established in the standard ASTM B895 – 05 have allowed to accurately evaluate the corrosion property. A wrong choice of materials can lead to an inadequate life cycle assessment of pots. After completing this research, it has been found that enameled cast iron and stainless-steel show higher corrosion resistances.
The research consists of the automation of a rotating test tunnel, through an interactive platform, with heating systems by means of electrical resistances coupled to test pieces in different geometric configurations. The working fluid is air, applying a flow controlled by a fan through the mobile duct, at different angles of inclination. Thermodynamic variables are monitored by Arduino hardware that allows information processing. The signals are sent and displayed using the platform integrated by the LabView control and design software; Within the programming with the application, the coefficients of natural and forced convection obtained experimentally, showed a deviation of less than 5% compared to the theoretical data in different conditions of heat transfer by this mechanism, taking into account that the temperature sensors have a sensitivity of 0.25 °C, giving the equipment reliability and confidence of up to 95% accuracy, with air speed in the range of 1.5 to 2.4 m/s.
Sustained use and adoption of clean cooking fuels have become an important concern for developing countries due to the enormous burden of diseases attributable to household air pollution (HAP). The transition and adoption of clean household energy involve various socio-economic, behavioral, and technological barriers at different community levels. Hence, the present paper aims to scrutinize the factors, key determinants, and other interventions among rural households that limit clean cookstoves' sustained uses. The study proposes an integrated model to enhance clean cooking fuel uptake and uses based on the available evidence. The health and environmental factors were identified as the key to trigger the adoption of clean cooking fuel alternatives. The model comprises the integration of components for targeted clean fuel policy interventions and promotes green recovery. The elements include Knowledge, Housing characteristics, Awareness, Interventions, Willingness to pay, Adoption, Lower emissions and Gender Equality (THE KHAIWAL model) to ascertain the intervention focus regions. Integration of model components in policy implementation will promote clean household energy to reduce emissions, leading to improve quality of life, good health, women empowerment, better air quality and climate.
From 2016-2019, the Indian Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) distributed over 80 million Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stoves, making it the largest clean cooking program ever. Yet, evidence shows widespread continued use of the traditional chulha, negating the potential health benefits of LPG. Here we use semi-structured interviews with female and male adults to understand the drivers of LPG usage in Mulbagal, Karnataka, the site of a proto-PMUY program. We find that respondents perceive the main value of LPG to be saving time, rather than better health. We also find that norms of low female power in the household, in addition to costs, delay saving for and ordering LPG cylinder refills. Namely, female cooks controlled neither the money nor the mobile phone required to order a timely refill. These factors together contribute to the "refill gap": the period of non-use between refilling cylinders, which may range from days to even months. Our work reveals how gender norms can amplify affordability challenges in low-income households.
Available at http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1206340/.
Background: Approximately 2.8 billion people cook with solid fuels. Research has focused on the health impacts of indoor exposure to fine particulate pollution. Here, for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease project (GBD 2010), we evaluate the impact of household cooking with solid fuels on regional population-weighted ambient PM2.5 pollution (APM2.5).
Objectives: We estimated the proportion and concentrations of APM2.5 attributable to household cooking with solid fuels (PM2.5-cook) for the years 1990, 2005, and 2010 in 170 countries; and associated ill-health.
Methods: We used an energy supply-driven emissions model (GAINS) and source-receptor model (TM5-FASST) to estimate the proportion of APM2.5 produced by households and the proportion of household PM2.5 emissions from cooking with solid fuels. We estimated health effects using GBD 2010 data on ill-health from APM2.5 exposure.
Results: In 2010, household cooking with solid fuels accounted for 12% of APM2.5 globally, varying from 0% of APM2.5 in five higher-income regions to 37% (2.8 µg/m3 of 6.9 µg/m3 total) in Southern sub-Saharan Africa. PM2.5-cook constituted >10% of APM2.5 in seven regions housing 4.4 billion people. South Asia showed the highest regional concentration of APM2.5 from household cooking (8.6 µg/m3). Based on GBD 2010, we estimate that exposure to APM2.5 from cooking with solid fuels caused the loss of 370,000 lives and 9.9 million disability-adjusted life years globally in 2010.
Conclusions: PM2.5 emissions from household cooking constitute an important portion of APM2.5 concentrations in many places, including India and China. Efforts to improve ambient air quality will be hindered if household cooking conditions are not addressed.
In the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) done as part of the Global Burden of Disease project (GBD-2010), the global and regional burdens of household air pollution (HAP) due to the use of solid cookfuels, were estimated along with 60+ other risk factors. This article describes how the HAP CRA was framed; how global HAP exposures were modeled; how diseases were judged to have sufficient evidence for inclusion; and how meta-analyses and exposure-response modeling were done to estimate relative risks. We explore relationships with the other air pollution risk factors: ambient air pollution, smoking, and secondhand smoke. We conclude with sensitivity analyses to illustrate some of the major uncertainties and recommendations for future work. We estimate that in 2010 HAP was responsible for 3.9 million premature deaths and 4.8% of lost healthy life years (DALYs), ranking it highest among environmental risk factors examined and one of the major risk factors of any type globally.
Estimating the burden of disease attributable to long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in ambient air requires knowledge of both the shape and magnitude of the relative risk function (RR). However, there is inadequate direct evidence to identify the shape of the mortality RR functions at high ambient concentrations observed in many places in the world.
Develop relative risk (RR) functions over entire global exposure range for causes of mortality in adults: ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and lung cancer (LC). In addition, develop RR functions for the incidence of acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) that can be used to estimate mortality and lost-years of healthy life in children less than 5 years old.
An Integrated Exposure-Response (IER) model was fit by integrating available RR information from studies of ambient air pollution (AAP), second hand tobacco smoke (SHS), household solid cooking fuel (HAP), and active smoking (AS). AS exposures were converted to estimated annual PM2.5 exposure equivalents using inhaled doses of particle mass. Population attributable fractions (PAF) were derived for every country based on estimated world-wide ambient PM2.5 concentrations.
The IER model was a superior predictor of RR compared to seven other forms previously used in burden assessments. The PAF (%) attributable to AAP exposure varied among countries from: 2-41 for IHD, 1-43 for stroke, < 1-21 for COPD, < 1-25 for LC, and < 1-38 for ALRI.
We developed a fine particulate mass-based RR model that covered the global range of exposure by integrating RR information from different combustion types that generate emissions of particulate matter. The model can be updated as new RR information becomes available.
Background: Exposure to household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels in simple stoves is a major health risk. Modeling reliable estimates of solid fuel use is needed for monitoring trends and informing policy.
Objectives: In order to revise the disease burden attributed to household air pollution for the Global Burden of Disease 2010 project and for international reporting purposes, we estimated annual trends in the world population using solid fuels.
Methods: We developed a multilevel model based on national survey data on primary cooking fuel.
Results: The proportion of households relying mainly on solid fuels for cooking has decreased from 62% (95% CI: 58, 66%) to 41% (95% CI: 37, 44%) between 1980 and 2010. Yet because of population growth, the actual number of persons exposed has remained stable at around 2.8 billion during three decades. Solid fuel use is most prevalent in Africa and Southeast Asia where > 60% of households cook with solid fuels. In other regions, primary solid fuel use ranges from 46% in the Western Pacific, to 35% in the Eastern Mediterranean and < 20% in the Americas and Europe.
Conclusion: Multilevel modeling is a suitable technique for deriving reliable solid-fuel use estimates. Worldwide, the proportion of households cooking mainly with solid fuels is decreasing. The absolute number of persons using solid fuels, however, has remained steady globally and is increasing in some regions. Surveys require enhancement to better capture the health implications of new technologies and multiple fuel use.
Quantification of the disease burden caused by different risks informs prevention by providing an account of health loss different to that provided by a disease-by-disease analysis. No complete revision of global disease burden caused by risk factors has been done since a comparative risk assessment in 2000, and no previous analysis has assessed changes in burden attributable to risk factors over time.
METHODS We estimated deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs; sum of years lived with disability [YLD] and years of life lost [YLL]) attributable to the independent effects of 67 risk factors and clusters of risk factors for 21 regions in 1990 and 2010. We estimated exposure distributions for each year, region, sex, and age group, and relative risks per unit of exposure by systematically reviewing and synthesising published and unpublished data. We used these estimates, together with estimates of cause-specific deaths and DALYs from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, to calculate the burden attributable to each risk factor exposure compared with the theoretical-minimum-risk exposure. We incorporated uncertainty in disease burden, relative risks, and exposures into our estimates of attributable burden.
FINDINGS In 2010, the three leading risk factors for global disease burden were high blood pressure (7·0% [95% uncertainty interval 6·2-7·7] of global DALYs), tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke (6·3% [5·5-7·0]), and alcohol use (5·5% [5·0-5·9]). In 1990, the leading risks were childhood underweight (7·9% [6·8-9·4]), household air pollution from solid fuels (HAP; 7·0% [5·6-8·3]), and tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke (6·1% [5·4-6·8]). Dietary risk factors and physical inactivity collectively accounted for 10·0% (95% UI 9·2-10·8) of global DALYs in 2010, with the most prominent dietary risks being diets low in fruits and those high in sodium. Several risks that primarily affect childhood communicable diseases, including unimproved water and sanitation and childhood micronutrient deficiencies, fell in rank between 1990 and 2010, with unimproved water and sanitation accounting for 0·9% (0·4-1·6) of global DALYs in 2010. However, in most of sub-Saharan Africa childhood underweight, HAP, and non-exclusive and discontinued breastfeeding were the leading risks in 2010, while HAP was the leading risk in south Asia. The leading risk factor in Eastern Europe, most of Latin America, and southern sub-Saharan Africa in 2010 was alcohol use; in most of Asia, North Africa and Middle East, and central Europe it was high blood pressure. Despite declines, tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke remained the leading risk in high-income north America and western Europe. High body-mass index has increased globally and it is the leading risk in Australasia and southern Latin America, and also ranks high in other high-income regions, North Africa and Middle East, and Oceania.
INTERPRETATION Worldwide, the contribution of different risk factors to disease burden has changed substantially, with a shift away from risks for communicable diseases in children towards those for non-communicable diseases in adults. These changes are related to the ageing population, decreased mortality among children younger than 5 years, changes in cause-of-death composition, and changes in risk factor exposures. New evidence has led to changes in the magnitude of key risks including unimproved water and sanitation, vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, and ambient particulate matter pollution. The extent to which the epidemiological shift has occurred and what the leading risks currently are varies greatly across regions. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, the leading risks are still those associated with poverty and those that affect children.
FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A much-cited bar chart provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change displays the climate impact, as expressed by radiative forcing in watts per meter squared, of individual chemical species. The organization of the chart reflects the history of atmospheric chemistry, in which investigators typically focused on a single species of interest. However, changes in pollutant emissions and concentrations are a symptom, not a cause, of the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change: human activity. In this paper, we suggest organizing the bar chart according to drivers of change-that is, by economic sector. Climate impacts of tropospheric ozone, fine aerosols, aerosol-cloud interactions, methane, and long-lived greenhouse gases are considered. We quantify the future evolution of the total radiative forcing due to perpetual constant year 2000 emissions by sector, most relevant for the development of climate policy now, and focus on two specific time points, near-term at 2020 and long-term at 2100. Because sector profiles differ greatly, this approach fosters the development of smart climate policy and is useful to identify effective opportunities for rapid mitigation of anthropogenic radiative forcing.
The importance of energy for development is underscored by the United Nations declaration of 2014 to 2024 as the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All. Among the goals is to provide universal access to electricity and clean cooking. Each laudable in itself, the two goals actually overlap.
This paper deals with the performance tests of a PRB (porous radiant burner) used for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) domestic cooking stoves. The burner consists of a two-layer porous media. The combustion zone is made up of silicon carbide, and alumina balls forms the preheating zone. For a given burner diameter, the performances of the burner, in terms of thermal efficiency and emission characteristics, are analysed for different equivalence ratios and thermal loads (wattages). The water boiling test as prescribed in the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standard): 4246:2002 was used to calculate the thermal efficiency of both the conventional LPG cooking stoves and the PRB. The maximum thermal efficiency of the LPG cooking stoves with a PRB was found to be 68% which is 3% higher than that of the maximum thermal efficiency of the conventional domestic LPG cooking stoves. Unlike the conventional LPG stoves, for which the CO and NOX emissions were found in the ranges 400–1050 mg/m3 and 162–216 mg/m3, respectively, for the one with PRB, the same were in the ranges of 25–350 mg/m3 and 12–25 mg/m3. The axial temperature distribution in the burner showed that the reaction zone was close to the interface of the two zones and at a higher thermal load, it shifted towards the downstream. The surface temperature of the PRB was found to be uniform.
Realistic metrics and methods for testing household biomass cookstoves are required to develop standards needed by international policy makers, donors, and investors. Application of consistent test practices allows emissions and energy efficiency performance to be benchmarked and enables meaningful comparisons among traditional and advanced stove types. In this study, 22 cookstoves burning six fuel types (wood, charcoal, pellets, corn cobs, rice hulls, and plant oil) at two fuel moisture levels were examined under laboratory-controlled operating conditions as outlined in the Water Boiling Test (WBT) protocol, Version 4. Pollutant emissions (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, total hydrocarbons, and ultrafine particles) were continuously monitored. Fine particle mass was measured gravimetrically for each WBT phase. Additional measurements included cookstove power, energy efficiency, and fuel use. Emission factors are given on the basis of fuel energy, cooking energy, fuel mass, time, and cooking task or activity. The lowest PM(2.5) emissions were 74 mg MJ(delivered)(-1) from a technologically advanced cookstove compared with 700-1400 mg MJ(delivered)(-1) from the base-case open 3-stone cookfire. The highest thermal efficiency was 53% compared with 14-15% for the 3-stone cookfire. Based on these laboratory-controlled test results and observations, recommendations for developing potentially useful metrics for setting international standards are suggested.
- struggled with defining “sustainability. ” Typical of efforts to make concrete this slippery concept was a preparatory paper addressing one of the most pressing issues in human development, how to bring modern energy services to the one-third of humanity whose development and survival requirements suffer from lack of them (2). These twobillion people have little access to electricity and depend for cooking and heating on local biomass in the form of wood, crop residues, and dung. In common with other such analyses, the premise of this paper was that, for the poor as for everyone else, only renewable energy sources qualify as sustainable. After all, fossil fuels are in principle limited, and the fossil carbon they contain is a threat when released. Nevertheless, there are questionable assumptions behind the premise that fossil fuels are unsustainable for the rural poor:--That the major alternative, local use of biomass fuel, is, by comparison, sustainable. In many cases, however, it contributes to local depletion of biomass resources including forests, produces serious health impacts in the local population because of its high emissions of pollutants, and even when renewably harvested is not greenhouse neutral because the poor combustion in simple stoves
Household Fuel Use Tables, National Census
- Government
- India
Government of India, 2013. Household Fuel Use Tables, National Census 2011–2012.
Energy Access for Development
- S Pachauri
- A Brew-Hammond
- D F Barnes
- D H Bouille
- S Gitonga
- V Modi
- G Prasad
- A Rath
- H Zerriffi
Pachauri, S., Brew-Hammond, A., Barnes, D.F., Bouille, D.H., Gitonga, S., Modi, V., Prasad, G., Rath, A., Zerriffi, H., 2012. Energy Access for Development. In GEA, Op cit, 1401–1458.