Cookstoves Take Center Stage at Sustainable Energy for All Forum
The Second UN Sustainable Energy for All Forum, which took place this month in New York, featured the launch of the Global Sustainable Energy for All Commitment Platform and the first ever Global Energy Ministerial Dialogue. It also saw a significant expansion in its focus on improving access to clean cookstoves and fuels. The Forum included engaging discussions on financing, gender-informed business models, and the energy-health nexus, as well as first-time sessions on enhancing the clean fuels marketplace, reducing short-lived climate pollutants through clean cooking, and improving access to cooking energy in humanitarian settings.
While at the Forum, the Alliance joined the World Bank to release a comprehensive mapping of the clean cooking sector. The report, a result of the Alliance’s long-time partnership with the Bank, identified the “huge potential” of the cookstoves and fuels market and highlighted the need to utilize market-based approaches to maximize sustainability, adoption, and impact.
[pullquote]”We must make necessary inroads on clean cooking as the issue crosses so many sectors—health, gender, environment, technology, poverty and energy. The challenge is to combine all of our forces to replace old cookstoves with newer, cleaner, and more efficient ones,” said Anita Marangoly George, Senior Director of the World Bank Group’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice.
“To solve this issue will require the creation of a thriving global market for clean cooking solutions. There must be sustained efforts to stimulate demand for and adoption of cleaner and more efficient cookstoves and fuels, as well as to develop a robust pipeline of enterprises that can meet growing consumer demand and supply products of high quality that customers value, at prices they can afford,” said Radha Muthiah, CEO of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.