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High efficiency cookstoves in Tanzania
Context
In many countries around the world, burning non-renewable biomass is the most common source of heat for cooking. Often, the stoves used to burn this biomass are not efficient enough to make the best use of the fuel available, leading to high levels of unsustainable deforestation.
Furthermore, burning more biomass than is essential produces even more greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. Not only are these emissions bad for the planet, they’re also detrimental to the health of the people nearby, producing air pollution within the home that compromises respiratory health.
In Tanzania, the primary fuel source for over 90% of the population of around 48 million people is biomass, in the form of firewood or charcoal. Data from 2020 showed that less than 5% of the population had access to clean fuels for cooking. For the remaining 95% of the population, their only choice currently is to use more polluting sources of fuel, such as firewood and charcoal.
Installing what are often known as ‘cleaner cookstoves’ can bring lots of benefits to both people and the environment. By reducing the amount of wood and charcoal that is burned by using these more efficient stoves, the volume of greenhouse gas emissions produced is reduced, and also less time and energy needs to be spent collecting this fuel – a job which often falls to women and children to carry out.
Project
This project will distribute and install 500,000 fuel-efficient improved cookstoves throughout Tanzania, replacing less efficient cooking setups – often open fires. Between September 2020 and September 2030, this project will avoid the production of over 18.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – an average of over 1.8 million each year of the crediting period.
To ensure these emissions reductions are truly being made, data will be collected about the use of the stoves, including a visual inspection of the premises to see if the stove is operational and in use within 12 months of introduction into the household (with an interview with end user carried out if required to verify that ICS is still in use), and an annual interview with end user to determine the average quantity of firewood used in the project stove per day.
The project brings several benefits for local people, including freeing up of time and money for other income-generating activities, health benefits due to reducing exposure to air pollution in the home, and increased food security due to nutrient retention with decreased cook time.
Projects such as this one often bring more benefits to women than men, as women are usually the primary users of cooking equipment within the project areas. In this instance, time saved through using the more-efficient cookstoves can then be spent on income-generating activities or relaxation time instead, leading to better gender equity in the project area.
Improved clean cookstoves
Improved clean cookstoves can address the pollution from burning wood or biomass in traditional stoves. Using various technologies, they reduce emissions and protect human health.
Around the world, 3 billion people cook over open fires or on rudimentary stoves. As these burn, often inside homes or in areas with limited ventilation, they release plumes of smoke and soot liable for 4.3 million premature deaths each year. Traditional cooking practices also produce 2 to 5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
A wide range of “improved” cookstove technologies exists, with a wide range of impacts on emissions. Advanced biomass stoves are the most promising. By forcing gases and smoke from incomplete combustion back into the stove’s flame, some cut emissions by an incredible 95 percent.
UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
The goals recognised by Improved kitchen regimes in East Africa are...
