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One billion Africans being harmed by cooking pollution (phys.org)

submitted 3 days ago by Bampot@lemmy.world to c/dangerdust@lemmy.world

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One billion Africans have to cook on open fires or with fuel that is hazardous to their health and the environment, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

The problem, which its report says can be easily solved, causes as much greenhouse gas emissions every year as the aviation industry.

Two billion people across the world still cook on open fires or with rudimentary stoves fed by wood, charcoal, agricultural waste or manure, the IEA report found.

"It is one of the greatest injustices of our time, especially in Africa,"

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[–] TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

So you're saying I could start up a company in africa to produce electric cooktops that employs locals and amass a small fortune ethically?

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

The problem is most of these places don't have reliable electricity. Obviously solar isn't reliant on a grid, but being able to store enough energy and output enough power for a cooktop/oven requires fairly substantial resources.

It's largely a problem of harm reduction as I understand it. Many people cook indoors over wood, which creates a lot of indoor pollution. Moving to cooking outside helps greatly. Additionally, much of the cooking is over more or less open fires which don't combust very well, so changing to stove designs that enable more complete combustion both saves fuel and reduces pollution.

Ideally long term, electrification is the goal, but that will likely take a lot longer.

There are companies like biolite trying to address the issue (I have no clue how good they are ethically) with devices that use thermoelectric generators to run fans to improve combustion and produce electricity for small devices.