Energy for Cooking in Developing Countries

Traditional fuels such as wood and charcoal are widely used for cooking and heating in developing countries. This has serious negative implications for the environment and health – 1.6 million deaths per year are attributed to indoor air pollution by the World Health Organization. The chapter begins by underlining the seriousness of these problems and then provides qualitative and quantitative analysis of potential solutions. How many people use biomass for domestic cooking and heating in the world today? What trends would we see without policy intervention? How many people need to switch to sustainable biomass use or modern fuels in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals? Finally, how much will it cost? With this last question in mind we consider innovative financing mechanisms and the chapter concludes by outlining implications for policy. The work will have input from WHO, UNFAO, UNEP, UNDP and others.