The Kenyan Government is working with clean cooking sector stakeholders to develop policy and structure for clean and sustainable cooking solutions to eliminate the dependence on biomass as primary fuel sources. The reliance on solid biomass has led to severe health complications amongst Kenyans and environmental degradation.
Statistics show that 64.7% (equivalent to 8.1 million) of households in Kenya use wood as their primary source of cooking fuel, and the government has ambitious plans to end this by 2028. This universal clean cooking commitment was announced at the recently concluded global climate change conference (COP 26) in Glasgow Scotland by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Energy, Amb. Monica Juma.
Principal Secretary, Ministry of Energy Dr. Gordon spoke during the launch of the Clean cooking week 2021, emphasizing the efforts underway.
“As a government, we have committed to gradually phase-out of the use of charcoal in urban areas by 2028 and transition all public institutions from use of biomass cooking fuels to higher tier cooking Solutions by 2025. Further, we will accelerate the adoption of and use of clean cooking technologies and fuels to 100 % by 2028.”
According to a recent study by the Kenya Cooking Sector, complications from Household Air Pollution (HAP) through inefficient stoves and fuels lead to the death of 21,560 lives annually in Kenya. In order to fix such a dire situation cutting across health reform and climate action, there is a need for collaboration between the government and concerned private sector players.
Clean Cooking Association of Kenya chairperson, Jechoniah Kitala insists as well that clean cooking is the key step towards mitigating the adverse effects of pollution and climate change.
“Household energy plays a significant role in facilitating sustainable development due to its nexus nature with other elements of development hence we need to make it an integral part of countries’ policies,” Kitala added.
The plan of action by the government now is to increase funding for clean cooking, and the development of sustainable markets specifically LPG, electricity, clean biomass solutions, ethanol, and biogas.
