‘Sustained Transition to Clean Cooking Fuels’ and India’s developmental priorities…
Source-Teriin.org
Is ensuring sustained transition to clean cooking fuels among all Indian households going to help in solving other pressing developmental problems for India?
India committed to the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development with the principle of Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas. Among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ; Goal 7 & 12 -Sustainable Development of Energy; Responsible Consumption and Production patterns necessitates the usage of clean, sustainable energy sources and technologies for cooking fuels.
However, in India, energy poverty remains one of the key roadblocks to achieving sustainable cooking fuels. It’s a paradox how cooking being fundamental to the cultural and social part of human life is regarded with negligence when it comes to individual and household health and cooking conditions. According to WHO estimates, about 5 lakh deaths happen in India due to unclean cooking fuels. Energy starved rural areas in India are dependent on solid fuels like firewood, coal and dung cake in traditional methods of cooking. Use of these traditional fuels have had a severe economic, health, gendered, environmental and climate impact. India has employed a multi pronged approach comprising technological measures, subsidization and alternative fuels to cater to the problem of cooking fuels.
In line with the approach, in 2016, the Government of India came up with Ujjwala Scheme aiming to provide 80 million deprived households with LPG connection, however ubiquitous use of LPG could not be achieved. The India Residential Energy Survey 2020 showed that 85% of the population has LPG/PNG however half of households still use solid fuels. Suspension of LPG subsidies and economic downturn due to lockdown and Covid-19 induced economic slowdown, have reduced household income and made the LPG unaffordable. Other reasons like preference for cooking on traditional chulhas (72%), free biomass (59%), and limited LPG refills (46%) are reasons for pulling down the LPG usage and increasing solid fuel consumption.
As can be seen from the NFHS-5 survey data, many states lag behind in LPG usage primarily in rural areas. Clean cooking energy access is not only a problem in rural areas but urban areas as well. Data shows that over a third of slum households are stacking up with polluting fuels (including firewood, dung cakes, agricultural residue, charcoal, and kerosene).
Hence the need of the hour is political, economic, and environmental priority at state and national level to ensure sustainable cooking fuel availability, accessibility and affordability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
How does sustained transition to clean cooking fuels help in solving other pressing developmental problems for India?
Cooking accounts for around 80% of the total household energy consumption in rural India. Access to clean cooking energy is important not for energy access alone, but also for human development. The lack of energy access manifests in a variety of practical forms, including poor public health of vulnerable sections like women and children, unequal rural development, and loss of critical biodiversity and natural resources. Thus human development is marred with issues surrounding women, children, health and productivity.
In India, rural women spend an hour every day collecting firewood; however, the household economics does not cater to her ‘time poverty’. Biomass collection and health cost of solid fuels impact women at both macro and micro level, from inferior development opportunities to lack of decision making at household level. Providing cooking energy parity to women in rural areas will enable women empowerment which shall accelerate the process of gender-neutral decision making at the household.
Clean cooking energy shall help to escape HAP (household air pollution), health ailments and drudgery. According to NFHS-5, there was a higher prevalence of tuberculosis in households that were using solid fuels compared to those that were using clean cooking fuels in most states. Role of household air pollution can be understood by the fact that in 2015, the household air pollution due to wood or cow dung as cooking fuel was responsible for 124,207 premature deaths per million people in India. Reducing smoke emissions from cooking decreases the disease burden associated with HAP and improves well-being, especially for women and children. Thus contributing to meeting the goals under SDG 3 on good health and well-being. As per a recent report by Lancet, deaths due to household air pollution from solid fuels have reduced by more than 50 per cent since 2000. This showcases the improvement in human development that clean cooking energy access can bring about.
On an environmental-climate level, black carbon, which is responsible for melting glaciers, is a by-product of burning solid fuels. Around 25% of the black carbon emanates from usage of solid fuels. Thus clean cooking fuels will help resolve some of the most basic needs of the poor and also provide climate benefits by reducing the black carbon emissions, and help in achieving the goals under SDG 13 on climate action.
How to convince the government of India to increase its attention towards realizing the vision of clean cooking for all?
As per International Energy Outlook report, by 2030, around 580 million (39% of the Indian population) will be dependent on solid fuels for cooking energy requirements and India could miss the SDG 7 target.
Hence, there is a need to look beyond connections and consider the role of affordability constraints and supply-side roadblocks in order to improve access to energy. The low hanging fruit i.e. increasing rural household’s share of usage of cleaner cooking fuel compared to their existing baseline could be the first step.
Secondly, there is a need to understand user categories and fuel usage patterns to enable access to and sustained use of clean cooking fuels. Thirdly, it is crucial to recognize the implications of cooking being a gendered activity and its role in inhibiting women’s agency. Fourthly, any clean cooking initiative should provide two or more cooking technological alternatives as people have easy accessibility to solid fuels.
Solid fuel stacking is a reality and cannot be wished away as households that stack fuels use these fuels for non-cooking purposes like heating water for bathing (29%) and space heating (10%). However, alternative avenues for solid fuel exchange could be thought of whereby the government could consider a provision for alternate uses of solid fuel with an exchange value for them.
The guiding principles to improve adoption of an ecosystem-based approach for use of clean cooking energy for all households could include the following priority areas-
● Infrastructure-Strengthening the supply infrastructure including both, LPG and electricity, and other alternative energy sources.
● Synergetic energy appliances-Making available appliances that are efficient and can be used in synergy with other sources of energy.
● Financing-Business models need innovations like mini-Ujjwala scheme where small LPG cylinders or ‘plug and play’ energy (LPG or electricity) service are available.
● Liasioning-Clean cooking energy programmes should be merged with the social assistance intervention of other ministerial programmes to effectively target slum households.
● Indexing/Tracing the cooking energy access-Establish access to clean cooking energy as a developmental goal by dashboarding and monitoring the clean cooking fuel vs traditional fuel.
