UN health agency calls for a switch to cleaner cooking fuels for poor

In order to halve the 1.5 million deaths caused annually by cooking fumes, nearly half a million people must gain access to cleaner fuels every day over the next ten years, according to a report by the United Nations health agency released today.

“Making cleaner fuels and improved stoves available to millions of poor people in developing countries will reduce child mortality and improve women’s health,” Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on the launch of the report “Fuel for Life: Household Energy and Health,” which shows how investment in cleaner fuels will save millions of lives and produce economic benefits.

“In addition to the health gains, household energy programmes can help lift families out of poverty and accelerate development progress,” he added.

Cooking with wood, dung, coal and other solid fuels on open fires or simple stoves is the norm for more than half of the world’s population, the report says, and the resulting pollution is a major risk factor for pneumonia among children and chronic respiratory disease among adults.

Cleaner fuel alternatives, including liquefied petroleum gas and biogas, as well as more efficient stoves and better ventilation, could significantly clear indoor air, according to WHO.

On average, the agency said, each 100 million homes switching to cleaner fuels for cooking would lead to 473 million fewer women, children and men exposed to harmful indoor air and 282,000 fewer deaths from respiratory diseases per year.

As could be expected, women are disproportionately affected by such indoor pollution. In addition, gathering solid fuels also disproportionately impinges on their work time and their time to take care of children, according to Carlos Corvalan, Coordinator of WHO’s Department of Public Health and Environment, who launched the report at UN Headquarters in New York.

“So we have a double problem. It is a health problem and it is also a development problem, Mr. Corvalan said.

Most of the cost of cleaner fuels, being cheaper in the longer run and more efficient, would be borne by households themselves, though funds are needed to help people switch: for awareness-raising to generate demand among users, for research and design of stoves and ventilation systems and for micro-credit to assist sellers and buyers of the fuels and stoves, said the report’s author, Eva Rehfuess, who joined Mr. Corvalan at the New York launch.

“We do need some public sector investment through donors in industrialized countries or through governments in developing countries to overcome the barriers in the beginning, essentially to catalyze the process,” she said.