Access to clean cooking services in energy and emission scenarios after COVID-19

Slow progress in expanding clean cooking access is hindering progress on health, gender, equity, climate and air quality goals globally. Despite a rising population share with clean cooking access, the number of cooking poor remains stagnant. In this study we explored clean cooking access until 2050...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNature energy Vol. 6; no. 11; pp. 1067 - 1076
Main Authors Pachauri, Shonali, Poblete-Cazenave, Miguel, Aktas, Arda, Gidden, Matthew J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.11.2021
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
704/844/2787
704/844/4066/4064
704/844/4066/4065
704/844/4066/4068
Air quality
Analysis
Clean energy
Climate change mitigation
Climate policy
Cooking
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Economics and Management
Emission
Emissions
Energy
Energy Policy
Energy Storage
Energy Systems
Energy utilization
Pandemics
Renewable and Green Energy
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Summary:Slow progress in expanding clean cooking access is hindering progress on health, gender, equity, climate and air quality goals globally. Despite a rising population share with clean cooking access, the number of cooking poor remains stagnant. In this study we explored clean cooking access until 2050 under three reference scenarios, a COVID-19 recovery scenario and ambitious climate mitigation policy scenarios. Our analysis shows that universal access may not be achieved even in 2050. A protracted recession after the pandemic could leave an additional 470 million people unable to afford clean cooking services in 2030 relative to a reference scenario, with populations in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia the worst affected. Ambitious climate mitigation needs to be twinned with robust energy access policies to prevent an additional 200 million people being unable to transition to clean cooking in 2030. Our findings underline the need for immediate acceleration in efforts to make clean cooking accessible and affordable to all. Many socioeconomic growth and low-emission energy scenarios do not consider impacts on clean cooking access and have yet to account for the COVID pandemic. Pachauri et al. now examine how clean cooking access evolves under various scenarios post COVID and find the need for policy focused on increasing access more urgent.
ISSN:2058-7546
2058-7546
DOI:10.1038/s41560-021-00911-9