G20 Energy Ministerial Meetings Wrap Up with Clean Cooking Front and Center
At the G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting in Beijing, G20 countries committed to additional action to expand energy access, specifically citing the critical role of clean cooking energy and initiatives like the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
The Alliance has been engaging through the G20 platform, with support of partner governments, to provide input into the intergovernmental process and effectively integrate clean cooking throughout energy access and sustainable development strategies. The inclusion of clean cooking in the Sustainable Development Goals and the understanding that scaling up clean cooking will be essential to reaching global climate goals also mirror this trend of greater, high-level prioritization of the issue.
The G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting produced two major outcome documents with a major focus on clean cooking – the G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting Beijing Communiqué and the Enhancing Energy Access in Asia and the Pacific: Key Challenges and G20 Voluntary Collaboration Action Plan. These multilateral policy statements directly call for more attention and support for clean cooking interventions as integral means of ending energy poverty and enabling sustainable development.
Additionally, these two key policy directives included recommendations reflective of the perspectives and priorities of the Global Alliance. The Enhancing Energy Access in Asia and the Pacific: Key Challenges and G20 Voluntary Collaboration Action Plan made specific recommendations that would enable greater impact for market-based energy access initiatives and more inclusive development. For example, the Action Plan called for scaling up effective strategies including public-private partnerships; technology transfer; closing gaps in national policy and regulations, finance, and collaboration; flexible approaches and financing to address multifaceted issues like poor access to cooking energy; and strong monitoring and data collection that are aligned with global and regional measurement frameworks, among others. This year’s host of the G20, China, reiterated their target of 40 million household adopting clean and efficient stoves and fuels in the country by 2020 in the Action Plan. This document also specifically cited the role of the Global Alliance in expanding adoption of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels as critical to addressing the global energy access challenge and encouraged continued partnership.
Read more about the Alliance's work on the G20 here.
The Alliance was pleased to have the support of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All), and some countries strongly expressed that clean cooking must be part of energy access approaches. Rachel Kyte, CEO of SE4All, and delegates from India and Germany highlighted the necessity of addressing the massive challenge of lack of access to clean cooking energy in their opening remarks at the G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting.
The Global Alliance is looking forward to further engagement with the G20, both through the energy track as well in connection to the policy discussions on sustainable development and combatting climate change. Germany, a longtime partner of the Alliance, is the next host of the G20.